It had been a decade since the Broncos last drafted an offensive tackle in the first round before we took Garett Bolles with the 20th overall pick in 2017. In many ways Bolles was going to have to live up to the lofty level of performance that Ryan Clady set as a rookie in 2008. Clady started 16 games for the Broncos in 2008 and, if I remember correctly, he did not allow a sack. Clady also had a competent NFL QB to block for, but we won’t get into that in this article. Bolles only missed part of one game with his ankle sprain so he saw 1107 offensive snaps this year.
Bolles as a rookie allowed (according to the Washington Post) 8.50 sacks, had seven holding penalties (according to NFLpenalties.com) and four false starts. I’ll probably do another sack-blame article this off-season to come up with my own number for how many sacks Bolles allowed, but suffice to to say that he allowed quite a few.
PFF graded him out at 68.8 (or the 42nd best offensive tackle in the league). However, they do not differentiate between left tackles and right tackles. In general it’s more difficult to play LT and that is why they get paid the big salaries while Right Tackles make significantly less.
Bolles got a horrible pass blocking grade of 51.0 but a very good run blocking grade of 81.8. For comparison sake, fellow rookie Dion Dawkins who also played a fair amount at LT this year for the Bills, graded out at 74.6, but he was much better in pass pro (74.6) than Bolles. Dawkins graded at 76.6 in run blocking. Another fellow rookie tackle, Ryan Ramczyk, graded as the 8th best tackle in the league in 2017 according to PFF - 84.2 overall, but keep in mind that he played RT (and was blocking for a future HoFer at QB).
Bolles will be in the second year of his rookie deal next season. He will have a cap number of $2.5MM next year. In the grand scheme of things he will be cheap for a left tackle in the NFL, but the question will become whether or not he will improve upon his play in 2018 relative to 2017. Let’s look at some recent first round LT’s in terms of how they played as rookies and whether or not that got better, worse or stayed the same in their second seasons.
First round OTs drafted 2012-2017 Comparing their PFF grade as rookies vs 2nd year
Year | Rnd | Pick | Tackle | Rookie Grade | 2nd Yr Grade | Change |
2017 | 1 | 20 | Garett Bolles | 68.8 | ? | |
2017 | 1 | 32 | Ryan Ramczyk | 84.2 | ? | |
2016 | 1 | 6 | Ronnie Stanley | 79.8 | 76.2 | -3.6 |
2016 | 1 | 8 | Jack Conklin | 88.6 | 81.8 | -6.8 |
2016 | 1 | 13 | Laremy Tunsil | 70.7 | 59.5 | -11.2 |
2016 | 1 | 16 | Taylor Decker | 80.7 | 60.5 | -20.2 |
2015 | 1 | 9 | Ereck Flowers | 35.5 | 49.9 | 14.4 |
2015 | 1 | 21 | Cedric Ogbuehi | 67.3 | 44.1 | -23.2 |
2015 | 1 | 24 | D.J. Humphries | 72 | 74.9 | 2.9 |
2014 | 1 | 2 | Greg Robinson | 47.1 | 41.6 | -5.5 |
2014 | 1 | 6 | Jake Matthews | 41.8 | 80.1 | 38.3 |
2014 | 1 | 11 | Taylor Lewan | 78.1 | 82.6 | 4.5 |
2014 | 1 | 19 | Ja'Wuan James | 49.3 | 75.1 | 25.8 |
2013 | 1 | 1 | Eric Fisher | 44.9 | 55.2 | 10.3 |
2013 | 1 | 2 | Luke Joeckel | out of league | out of league | |
2013 | 1 | 4 | Lane Johnson | 74.6 | 85.7 | 11.1 |
2013 | 1 | 11 | D.J. Fluker | 73.8 | 78.3 | 4.5 |
2013 | 1 | 19 | Justin Pugh | 78.4 | 78.8 | 0.4 |
2012 | 1 | 4 | Matt Kalil | 81 | 74.4 | -6.6 |
2012 | 1 | 23 | Riley Reiff | 71.3 | 74.3 | 3 |
Some guys like Jake Matthews and JuWaun James got a lot better in their second year in the league playing LT. Other guys like Taylor Decker and Cegric Ogbuehi regressed horribly. Which way do you think Bolles is going to go? Given how little experience he has playing offensive tackle at the highest level, I think he will improve. I am not expecting him to be a top 10 offensive tackle in 2018, but I would not be surprised in the least if he ends up in the top 20 next year. The average for all of the tackles shown above was +2.2 year over year.
Poll
In 2018 Garett Bolles ...
This poll is closed
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1%
gets a little worse and become a bottom of the league LT (comparable to Donald Stephenson)
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4%
Stays about the same - a bottom third offensive tackle
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68%
Improves slightly - fewer holding calls, fewer sacks allowed, but he won’t be reminding anyone of Ryan Clady in his AllPro year.
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25%
Improves greatly - he makes a huge leap and become one of the top 10 LTs in the league