Broncos Offensive Line Plays Poorly on the Road Despite Victory

The Denver Broncos came away with the win against the Cincinnati Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium. However, there were many issues for them as a team. Their biggest? The offensive line play.

It wasn’t pretty for the Denver Broncos offensive line. They really had their issues all game long against the Cincinnati Bengals. What really sparked the poor play was an injury. That caused a lot of movement and then the issues were obvious.

Before the injury, the unit struggled to get push in the run game. This really took a lot away from the Broncos offense, which relies on the run. Of course, the Cincinnati Bengals have a big, strong defensive line. It wasn’t going to be easy to run the ball anyways.

Then the left tackle went down. Russel Okung hurt his lower back and missed some time. This caused Darrion Weems to be inserted at right guard and starting right guard Michael Schofield to move to left tackle. Thats when the Bengals defensive line really looked like they would be taking over the game.

Michael Schofield has been fantastic at guard this season. Few pressures allowed and opened up some huge holes in the running game. At guard he doesn’t have to deal with speed, which has been his kryptonite. So being moved to left tackle was concerning.

His play there wasn’t bad, but not as good as it was at right guard. He struggled to get push in the run game and allowed a few pressures as well. Then when Okung re-entered the game, Shcofield moved back to right guard and continued to struggle. It was like playing left tackle threw him out of rhythm.

More from Mile High Maniac

As for Okung, before his injury he was playing well as a pass protector. His run blocking was poor and a big reason they struggled to run on the left side. After his injury his play, understandably, got worse. Okung was allowing more pressure and doing even less as a run blocker.

All that said about Okung and Schofield, they biggest issues came from right tackle Ty Sambrailo and left guard Max Garcia. Only offensive linemen who played well all game was the center Matt Paradis.

Garcia is quickly approaching the bench with his play. He was really bad against the Panthers, and even worse today. Consistent pressure from his defenders in the pass game really made life hard for Trevor Siemian. There wasn’t anything Garcia could do to slow down the pass rush.

In regards to his run blocking, it was the worst of his young career so far. There was no push from Garcia and one run in particular showed that. C.J. Anderson was following Garcia, but there was no push and Anderson got tackled behind the line of scrimmage.

When asked to pull, Garcia looks like he has cement feet. In college he moved pretty well, but he hasn’t shown it yet this year. His rookie year he showed it as a rotational player. To remain starter, Garcia has to improve his play. There isn’t much time for Garcia to start improving, either. Connor McGovern is coming along nicely and could be ready within two-three weeks.