Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Another Direction The Broncos Could Go..........

In my previous post I outlined what I think the Broncos should do with the draft, and QB situation next year. The idea was to draft McGlinchey from Notre Dame to play left tackle, and move Garrett Bolles to right tackle giving us a great young pair of offensive tackles. Move Ron Leary back to left, and either sign a guard, or keep Connor McGovern at right guard. There are other ways that the Broncos can rebuild this line that are just as intriguing as drafting McGlinchey and moving Bolles, and I will outline one of those plans in this post.

 In what is becoming a year in and year out issue, Denver needs to rebuild its offensive line. Nate Solder, a left tackle from New England, has Colorado ties as he went to Buena Vista high school, and then went to the University of Colorado to play football. He will be a free agent this year, and Denver should absolutely make a run at signing him. Signing Solder would also make Bolles move to right tackle, so again you basically "kill two birds with one stone". Assuming we get Solder, and move Bolles we still have an issue at guard. John Elway will then have a decision to make at pick 5, and that is do we draft Quentin Nelson from Notre Dame? Or do we pick the best player available? For this scenario I am going to go with taking the best player available. That might be a guard, running back, or even a QB. Then in round 2 or round 3 we can draft Will Hernandez who is a guard from UTEP who played under the new offensive line coach we had while he was in college. I watched a lot of the senior bowl practices, and Will Hernandez absolutely created some distance between himself and the other guards there. He is big, physical, and is mobile for his size. He could step right in and start at right guard, and would be an instant upgrade to what we have now (I say that only because the sample size we have of Connor McGovern). This would make the starting offensive line next year look like this: Nate Solder at left tackle, Ron Leary at left guard, Matt Paradis at Center, Will Hernandez at right guard, and Garrett Bolles at right tackle. This would give us a offensive line that is capable of being able to take over a game, and give us the freedom at pick 5 to either take a player like Barkley from Penn State if he is still available, or maybe we could trade back and draft Roquan Smith at inside linebacker, or whichever one of the top QBs that are on the board. Everyone loves having options, and going this route would give Denver some pretty appealing options.

1 comment:

  1. I like your thought process here on offensive line. But I think Solder is going to retire regardless of the Super Bowl outcome. As far as a mcglinchey moving to a Tackle Spot I get it but with a guy that damn good I think you just leave him in his natural spot. I really think Hernandez the play in the second round. I'm with you 100% Boles to right tackle, I think that's his optimal position. I like the idea of Barclays at the number 5 pick but I like a lot of backs in this draft I think there's better value later on but if Barclays there at 5 I don't see how they could pass on him. Good stuff bro keep going. Cliff

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