How much will Connor McGovern improve in 2018?

After having a red-shirt year where he didn’t play at all, Denver Broncos guard Connor McGovern played 417 offensive snaps (37%), starting five games and appearing in fifteen. He played about half of the snaps in games 1 on offense and then didn’t get used much at all until he was inserted into the starting lineup in game 12.

He was praised for his play on national TV against the Indianapolis Colts, but PFF graded him poorly - 40.2 (on a 100 scale) which was 63rd among all NFL guards. For comparison Ron Leary was graded at 81.2 (10th), but the other guys who played guard for us in 2017 were pretty comparable to McGovern - Allen Barbre 44.3 and Max Garcia 41.2 - both of those guys have a plethora of experience in the NFL relative to McGovern. While neither of them have even progressed to a higher level of play, I have confidence that McGovern will in 2018.

McGovern will still be on his rookie contract next year and has some versatility (he played center in the preseason). He will make $696,000 in 2018 and I’m sure he is plan B at center if Matt Paradis, who is a restricted free agent, gets tendered with a second and stolen from us by another team.

McGovern is one of the strongest guys on the team despite not being tremendously heavy. Notice in the lead picture that he has very little in the way of a tire on his middle. He fits very well into a power scheme (or a mostly power scheme) showing much better in the running game than he did in the passing game. He needs to work on his pass protection, but I’d be happy if he and Leary were slotted as the two starting guards in 2018, particularly if we draft another offensive tackle early.