Broncos roster review: Offensive lineman Alex Palczewski

Like I did for my review of Henry Byrd I am going to reuse much of my review of Alex Palczewski that I already did in this article.

Alex Palczewski

Alex played for the Illini in college. Brugler’s analysis of the tackle with the hard-to-pronounce last name is below:

Alex Palczewski (pal-CHESS-key), who is one of three boys, is the son of Polish immigrants who came to the U.S. in the mid-1980s. At Prospect, he was a four-sport letterman (football, track, water polo, wrestling), although he missed most of his junior season with a fractured vertebra. He was a starting senior right guard in Prospect’s option offense. A three-star recruit, Palczewski committed to Illinois where he set a Big Ten record with 65 career starts cross three different positions (finished his career with 4,390 offensive snaps). He has physical, insistent hands at the point of attack and stays after his blocks to spring runs. Although he plays with quickness, his footwork gets sloppy in his pass sets and he finds himself out of control at the second level. His wide hands invite rushers to bully him.

Overall, Palczewski has played a lot of football with experience at both tackle and guard, but he can too easily be knocked off balance and struggles to sustain.

Coming from the Big Ten, Alex has played against higher level d line and linebackers than Trey Jacobs (USF is in the AAC). Alex at 303 lbs is light for his height, but his advanced hand technique might allow him to find a spot on our practice squad. Alex’ other main asset besides his hands is his quickness. He ran the short shuttle in 4.57s at his pro day. While that is not quick enough to be in the “sweet spot” for OL players, it was close. For perspective the average OT at the combine this year ran the short shuttle in 4.74 seconds.

Alex has started games at both guard and tackle during his college career, although he played almost exclusively on the right side of the line: 49 RT, 9 RG, 7 LG

In terms of physical skills Alex may struggle with core strength and lower body strength. His quickness would be much more of an asset for a zone blocking scheme. Sean Payton’s offense tends to rely more on power than quickness.

I would guess that Alex doesn’t even make the Denver Broncos practice squad, but he could surprise me. I was similarly unimpressed by Elijah Wilkinson back in the day and he landed a spot on the practice squad where he turned himself into a below average starter in the NFL.