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Broncos
offensive line
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DENVER — Inside Oakland’s Network Associates Coliseum on Sept. 17, with
62,078 Raiders fans howling, Broncos veteran RB Raymont Harris soaked in every moment of
the critically-acclaimed performance that the Colorado Symphony Orchestra was conducting.
What precision, Harris thought. How beautiful, he told himself. During his five NFL
seasons in Chicago, Green Bay and New England, Harris realized he never had seen an
offensive line perform quite like this.
The Broncos’ offensive line was creating holes and making music, a symphony Harris
could not forget even days later.
"It was so surprising for me just to watch it," confessed Harris, who spent
this summer with the Patriots before being released. "I mean, it wasn’t like we
were playing some scrubs or something. Over the years, I’ve always watched Denver on
film and seen the offensive line. But I didn’t know the line worked so hard and did
what they do. And the scheme here is incredible. It’s just perfect. You plug in the
right running back into that style, with these linemen and with (fullback) Howard
Griffith, it’s unbelievable.
"I had never seen anything like it. All throughout the game, I was like, ‘Did
you see that block!? Did you see that hole!?’ And guys standing next to me were just
like, ‘Yeah,’ very matter of fact. Like it’s supposed to be like that. Like
I’m in the pros now. Me, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing."
These are Denver’s little big men, the key to an attack that allowed sixth-round
draft pick Mike Anderson to become only the ninth running back in league history to rush
for more than 100 yards in his first two NFL starts.
Denver’s line is the smallest and lightest in the NFL. But it continually comes up
huge.
The Broncos’ starting five — OLT Tony Jones (291 pounds), OLG Mark Schlereth
(287), C Tom Nalen (286), ORG Daniel Neil (285) and ORT Matt Lepsis (290) — is the
NFL’s only starting unit that averages less than 300 pounds per man. It weighs in at
287.8 pounds on average, but it sure throws its weight around effectively.
Prior to a Week Five loss to the Patriots in which Denver quickly fell behind 14-0 and
saw its running backs get only 15 carries all game, the Broncos had the NFL’s
second-rated rushing attack, behind only the Giants.
Meanwhile, the NFL’s heaviest line, the Cardinals’, averages 328.8 pounds per
man. Conversely, Arizona ranked dead last in the NFL in rushing after Week Four.
In a day and age when the NFL has gone so pass-happy, with games becoming one big fast
break, the Broncos have stuck to the most time-honored tradition in the sport —
running the football.
"You say it’s a pass-dominated league, but when you look at the championship
teams through the years, they were probably more productive running the football,"
Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan said before rattling off almost every Super Bowl winner
of the past decade. "If you can’t be tough and hard-nosed and just say,
‘Hey, we’re going to play some smash-mouth football,’ it’s hard to
come away with a win."
The key to Denver’s blocking success, aside from its personnel, is its blocking
schemes. The Broncos block differently than any other team in the league. They pull, and
they trap, moving at almost all times in lateral zone-blocking schemes. While other teams
deploy straight-ahead blocking schemes, the Broncos bypass them.
"It’s not all that complex, but they’ve got the perfect personnel to run
it," Jaguars DT Seth Payne said. "If you’re not ready for how they play,
because they’re so much more lateral, it’s kind of a shock."
Not so shocking is that most defenses hate it. Some even rail against it.
After the Broncos ran for 150 yards in their season-opening loss to St. Louis, Rams DT
D’Marco Farr moaned that the Broncos' offensive line held and chop-blocked. Then,
just before the Broncos played Oakland, Raiders DT Darrell Russell tried to strike back
before Denver’s offensive linemen could even get a hand on him.
"It’s outright holding and cut blocking," Russell said when asked to
describe the Broncos’ style of play. "This is a man’s sport, and
that’s not being a man."
Shanahan deftly pointed out that there were no such complaints last season when the
Broncos finished 6-10. But when the Broncos’ ground game grabbed everyone’s
attention to start the season, the cries, to Shanahan’s dismay, started being heard.
"I don’t like people that whine to start with," Shanahan said.
"I’m not talking about Darrell Russell, but people in general. Every play that
we do on the offensive line is scrutinized by the NFL. Everything. If we do something
illegal, we get fined for it. We haven’t gotten fined."
But their play continues to be finer than fine. It helps that Griffith is performing at
a Pro Bowl level, that Ed McCaffrey and Rod Smith are as good a pair of blocking wide
receivers as there is in the league, that RB coach Bobby Turner is adept at discovering
buried treasure in the late rounds of the draft. But it all starts with the group OL coach
Alex Gibbs has brought more attention to than either he or they would like.
Whether it is Anderson racking up NFL records, Terrell Davis putting up over 2,000
rushing yards or Olandis Gary shattering the rookie rushing records that Davis set in
1995, they make music. It is the music of grunt workers, of Denver’s little big men.
Adam Schefter covers the Broncos for the Denver Post |
