Ben Powers' biggest strength prompts pressing questions for Broncos run game

NFLGSIS.com has data for how well or poorly every lineup did during every season for every team. The data is available to everyone, but few use it since it is difficult to parse. Lucky for you, I am one of them, so we can use it to answer questions like: Which Denver Broncos offensive lineman was the best run blocker in 2025?

I have used SISdatahub.com in the past to compare this by looking at blown block rate and stuff rate. One article is here on MHR, but this will look at the raw play data.

The Broncos used six offensive linemen 98 times last season (78 runs and 20 runs). The three players who filled this role were Alex Palczewski (early in the season), Matt Peart (a few times), and Frank Crum (for the majority of the season). All of us should remember Frank Crum's TD catch as the 6th offensive lineman against the Bills in the playoffs, but he had plenty of plays in that role in the regular season.

Ben Powers was the best run-blocking Denver Broncos offensive lineman in 2025

The Broncos ran 1092 offensive plays last season and 98 of them used six offensive linemen, but according to Pro Football Focus, they were not a team that used six offensive linemen frequently. According to that article, seven percent of all offensive snaps (league-wide) last season used six OL. At nine percent, the Broncos were a little above average. When the Broncos were only using five offensive lineman (on most plays), the left guard (LG) was listed as player nine by NFLGSIS.

NFLGSIS shows the results for every unique lineup. We can pull who the runner or receiver was on a play (mostly) if that lineup was not used very often. On most running plays, the running back was listed as player two. The quarterback is always listed as player one. The lineup that the Broncos used most often (35 plays) was

Ben Powers was player 9 for 192 runs in 2025 and 251 passing plays. Alex Palczewski was player 9 for 200 running plays and 349 passing plays. The Broncos had 456 running plays in 2025, but 18 of those were kneeldowns (which shouldn't count). So of the actual 438 runs, Powers and Palcho were the LG for 392 of those (89.5 percent). Frank Crum was listed as player 9 for 35 run plays, Matt Peart for 22 and a few other guys had fewer than five.

Below is a table of how the team did on running plays with every Broncos offensive lineman in the game.

So, the Broncos gained 4.63 yards per carry when Ben Powers was in the game, but only 4.22 when Alex Palczewski was in the game. So Powers was our not only the team's best run blocking offensive linemen, but he was also the team's best run blocking LG.

If you want to read a deep dive into the Broncos' run game, you can read this article from earlier this year. The biggest takeaway from that study was that JK Dobbins and Jaleel McLaughlin were very good at having successful run plays in 2025, while RJ Harvey was not. Success on a run play is gaining 40 percent of the needed yards on first down, 60 percent of the needed yards on second down, and converting on third or fourth down.

McLaughlin only ran the ball 37 times, but was second in success rate at 59.5 percent. Only Kyren Williams was better at 62.5 percent. Dobbins was above average at 53.6 percent while Harvey was near the bottom of the league at 45.2 percent.

So was Powers' success tied to JK Dobbins, or was RJ Harvey more effective when he was blocking than when Palczewski was in at LG?

So with Dobbins running the ball, both LGs were equally good. I'd say that 4.81 and 4.85 are equivalent for all intents and purposes. Interestingly, RJ Harvey gained 4.55 yards per carry with Palczewski in the game and only 3.93 with Powers in the game. I wouldn't read too much into McLaughlin's numbers since the sample size is small, and for some of those runs, both Palczewski and Powers were in the game since McLaughlin only had 37 runs in 2025 (and 15 + 27 = 42).

Initially, I thought that high yard per carry value for McLaughlin with Powers blocking was a result of a really long run, but then I looked up Jaleel's runs from 2025. His longest was 16 yards (first quarter against Jacksonville). McLaughlin had eight runs that gained eight or more yards in 2025.

Ben Powers was blocking on five of those eight - accounting for 58 of the 99 yards that McLaughlin gained with Powers blocking. Five runs gained 58 - 11.6 yards per carry -- while the other 10 gained 41 - 4.1 yards per carry (which is still good). Of course, this brings up one of the lingering questions from last season: If Jaleel was so effective running the ball, why did he only get 37 carries?

McLaughlin got 85 offensive snaps for the Broncos in 2025, ending up with the ball on 41 of those (37 runs, 4 catches). So roughly half of the time he was in the game, he got the ball. Generally that's a tell for the defense and leads to less effective play from the ball carrier. However, a sign of a great offense is that the defense knows what they are going to do and yet can't stop it. So again, why didn't Jaleel get more snaps?

The answer has to be in his inability to pass block - blitz pickup. All but one of his runs came on first or second down. All but one of his targets came on first or second down. Looking at the data, there were 54 running plays where Jaleel McLaughlin was listed as player two, but wait -- he only ran the ball 37 times. The other 17 were scrambles by Bo Nix or designed runs by Nix or Marvin Mims.

Nix's second longest run of 2025 -- 22 yards against the Chargers -- and Mims' longest run - 16 for a TD against the Bungals -- both came with McLaughlin in the game. I only found two plays where McLaughlin and JK Dobbins were both in the game (one run, one pass). We had six plays with both Harvey and Dobbins on the field, but no plays with Harvey and McLaughlin both on the field.

Those six plays with Harvey and Dobbins on the field were quite successful with the only bad play coming as a run for a loss of two. The other run gained four yards (it was early in the season since Trent Sherfield was still on the team and in the game). The four passing plays gained 5, 7, 14, and 30 yards. The 30 yards pass was the TD to Courtland Sutton against the Houston Texans. As effective as the two halfback formation was for the Broncos in 2025, I'm surprised that they didn't use it more.

Counting the lone play with Tyler Badie and RJ Harvey, the Denver Broncos used two halfbacks on nine plays in 2025 - six passes and three runs. The runs averaged 6.3 yards and the passes averaged 10.1 yards.

Apparently the Broncos are behind this trend. According to Andrew Hall at Fulltimefantasy.com, plenty of teams used two halfbacks on the field in 2024 with the Detroit Lions leading this trend. In 2025 the Lions had both backs on the field for roughly 160 snaps. That's a far cry from the nine for the Broncos in 2025. It will be interesting to see what Davis Webb does in 2026 now that we have another young running back in the fold with Jonah Coleman.

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