Roster outlook: How good is the Denver Broncos’ offensive line?
The Denver Broncos and their offensive line have been the subject of much attention over the years, but is the unit better than we think?
Perhaps a big reason why Russell Wilson wanted out of Seattle was due to their offensive lines not being quite good enough over the years. Wilson’s playstyle does force him to take more sacks than one would like, but the offensive line itself was never a strong point. Is the Denver Broncos’ offensive line better than we think?
The offensive line has been the discussion of many across Broncos Country over the years. The unit has never been particularly strong, but it’s never been particularly weak, either.
However, I think the untrained eyes within the fanbase think that just because a quarterback takes a lot of sacks, like Teddy Bridgewater and Joe Flacco did, that means the offensive line must be improved.
While they aren’t totally wrong, there’s more context needed.
I think there is solid evidence of the Denver offensive line not being as bad as some think. PFF’s end-of-season offensive line rankings pegged Denver’s at 19th. While they allowed a lot of sacks, they only allowed 165 pressures in 2021, which ranked 15th across the NFL.
I also came across a series of statistics from Twitter user Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin).
The data that he shared comes from PFF. Basically, in layman’s terms, the data is a 2022 projection of pass protection rankings. The context behind the rankings is from the most recent PFF grades of five starters, weighted by snap count.
The table shows that the Denver Broncos could expect to have the 6th ranked offensive line in terms of pass protection, with a 74.4% percentile score.
If we took the 5 listed starters for each team from ourlads and tried to guess how good their pass protection would be based on most recent PFF grade, which teams would we expect to have the best and worst pass protection in 2022?
— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) March 28, 2022
Hmm, I wonder why Russell Wilson wanted out... pic.twitter.com/dN3R9OEcGf
This would be ahead of teams like the Buccaneers, Patriots, Rams, and 49ers.
The data were further evaluated in the Twitter thread. The next table, shown here, is more estimates of 2022 pass protection grades. This table is divided up by the projected starters, Garett Bolles, Dalton Risner, Graham Glasgow, Billy Turner, and Lloyd Cushenberry.
The data is a “2022 estimate based on padded 600 snaps based on prior performance or draft round prior.”
Both pieces of data provided seem to give the Denver Broncos a much stronger than average offensive line for 2022.
Furthermore, the Broncos’ offense as a whole greatly limited their penalties in 2021, according to nflpenalties.com
In 2021, the Broncos had the 8th fewest offensive presnap penalties. The same website also shows Denver with the 6th fewest offensive holding calls in 2021.
They had the 18th fewest false start penalties in 2021, which is about league average.
While the Broncos don’t have the best players along their offensive line, data suggests they have an above-average unit. Couple that with an elite quarterback who will surely help improve the unit, and I think the fans might be surprised at how well they could play in 2022.