Thread: 2016 O-Line

I'm throwing it out there right now. This starting Oline is going to beast this season. The Broncos will be top 5 in the run game. Elway has done a great job of upgrading this unit.

LT- Russell Okung- When he's healthy he a top 5 LT in this league. He looks like he's already in pro bowl form.
LG- Max Garcia- The youngster continues to improve in pass pro. He was always a beast in the run game. There's a reason the 2015 Olineman nicknamed him "The Future".
C- Matt Paradis- Solid all the way around. Third year is usually when lineman make their biggest leap. I expect no less from him.
RG- Ty Sambrailo/Darion Weems- Weems has been one of the surprises of camp. If Ty doesn't come back strong he may lose his starting job. Either way, it provides good depth at guard.
RT- Donald Stephenson- Another under the radar signing by Elway. I think this guy is the Darian Stewart of 2016. Unheralded, solid veteran.

All in all, when you throw in a real fullback and a commitment to the run I expect to see this unit improve leaps and bounds over last season. The media, local pundits, and forum contributors have all proclaimed this unit to be a weak link on this team. I beg to differ. My gut told me last season that the defense would be special.
It was almost a year ago today when I started this thread in the preseason:
http://www.broncosforums.com/forums/...t=orange+crush
This year my gut tells me that barring injuries, the offensive line will be really good. Feel free to bump this thread and laugh me off of the forum if I'm wrong.

Whoa-whoa-whoa.....

Take it easy SlimShady.

Lets not crown them just yet.





But I am feelin purty good about em.

Of course....could be the GreyGoose....

Originally Posted by WARHORSE

Whoa-whoa-whoa.....

Take it easy SlimShady.

Lets not crown them just yet.





But I am feelin purty good about em.

Of course....could be the GreyGoose....

If he wants to crown them, then crown they ass!

not gonna lie. . . i do hope for better results than last year, but they kinda look like a weak link to me, too. . . at best, one injury away from being one. . . schofield is supposedly still in contention to start at guard (at least week one), and that is flat scary. . . sombrero hasn't shown that he can stay on the field, and i don't want to talk about tackle depth beyond that. . .

Originally Posted by dogfish

not gonna lie. . . i do hope for better results than last year, but they kinda look like a weak link to me, too. . . at best, one injury away from being one. . . schofield is supposedly still in contention to start at guard (at least week one), and that is flat scary. . . sombrero hasn't shown that he can stay on the field, and i don't want to talk about tackle depth beyond that. . .

He is in contention to start, but only because 2 players in front of him are injured. Right now he's running 3rd team guard and backup tackle on both sides. That's why I put the "barring injuries" comment in. I believe the starting line will beast out. Hopefully they will stay healthy and we can look back at the end of the season and see if my gut was right. If not, it won't be the first or last time I was wrong about my boys.

Originally Posted by Ziggy

I'm throwing it out there right now. This starting Oline is going to beast this season. The Broncos will be top 5 in the run game. Elway has done a great job of upgrading this unit.

LT- Russell Okung- When he's healthy he a top 5 LT in this league. He looks like he's already in pro bowl form.
LG- Max Garcia- The youngster continues to improve in pass pro. He was always a beast in the run game. There's a reason the 2015 Olineman nicknamed him "The Future".
C- Matt Paradis- Solid all the way around. Third year is usually when lineman make their biggest leap. I expect no less from him.
RG- Ty Sambrailo/Darion Weems- Weems has been one of the surprises of camp. If Ty doesn't come back strong he may lose his starting job. Either way, it provides good depth at guard.
RT- Donald Stephenson- Another under the radar signing by Elway. I think this guy is the Darian Stewart of 2016. Unheralded, solid veteran.

All in all, when you throw in a real fullback and a commitment to the run I expect to see this unit improve leaps and bounds over last season. The media, local pundits, and forum contributors have all proclaimed this unit to be a weak link on this team. I beg to differ. My gut told me last season that the defense would be special.
It was almost a year ago today when I started this thread in the preseason:
http://www.broncosforums.com/forums/...t=orange+crush
This year my gut tells me that barring injuries, the offensive line will be really good. Feel free to bump this thread and laugh me off of the forum if I'm wrong.

I'm with you Ziggy. When Sirius/XM spent the day @ camp 2 weeks ago, they came back to how good the O-line looked again and again, and all the guys on defense were singing their praises.

My boy Schoefield gonna go out and shock the WORLD.

Originally Posted by Jaded

My boy Schoefield gonna go out and shock the WORLD.

dude, don't you even dare troll ziggy like that. . . shit ain't cool, man. . .

Originally Posted by dogfish

dude, don't you even dare troll ziggy like that. . . shit ain't cool, man. . .

He gonna shock the WORLD by not giving up 5 sacks in Rams game.

Originally Posted by Jaded

My boy Schoefield gonna go out and shock the WORLD.

By becoming an O lineman?

Or

By doing anything else remotely effective?

Originally Posted by Jaded

He gonna shock the WORLD by not giving up 5 sacks in Rams game.

okay, fair point. . . at guard, it'll probably be more like 3.5. . . maybe he can pin one on paradis, despite your love for boise. . .

I do love me some Boise.

Hey Dogfish, I always thought that Okung was a very good tackle, so there's that, right?

Originally Posted by Jaded

I do love me some Boise.

Originally Posted by dogfish

okay, fair point. . . at guard, it'll probably be more like 3.5. . . maybe he can pin one on paradis, despite your love for boise. . .

I hope you two hooligans have a moment of silence next time you enjoy mashed potatoes.

Last year proved anything's possible, and Dennison is to blockers what Kubiak is to passers, but I'm not holding my breath. I don't think Mannings slew of separate debilitating injuries his final three seasons were solely (maybe not even primarily) due to age: Osweiler's WAY younger, but lasted all of a WEEK longer in 2015. Even in his record-shattering 2013, Manning played HALF the season with BOTH ankles taped because the Bolts kept diving at them and our "blockers" couldn't even get in the way.

Just as I doubt it's coincidence CJ was the leagues best rusher in the second half of one season and first half of the next, or that McGahee and Moreno only had about a year of subpar ball left in them by the time our line was done with them. Sure, it's a new year, and I do expect improvement, but it's hard to go from "Oh, God, I can't look" to elite in one year. And while the work may have started last year, last years efforts did very little good. Garcia and Paradis have been the pick of the bunch so far; Sambrailo can't even stay on the field.

Speaking of individual linemen and predictions:

Okung's a legit stud as long as he stays healthy; the only time the 2013 Seahawks looked vulnerable was when a mid-season injury sidelined him for several weeks.

Garcia's a bulldozer, but got fooled by even the simplest stunts and delayed blitzes all last season. Hopefully Dennison's been able to coach him up.

Paradis had the same problem as Garcia AND got pushed back into Manning and Oz' face all year. "Too weak for line surge in the run game, too inexperienced for deception in the pass game" is not a good description of a starting NFL center. Dennison can coach the latter just as he can with Garcia, but Paradis needs a strength coach at least as badly.

RG: TBA. That says it all; it's hard to believe our starting RG's legit when WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO HE IS yet.

RT: For a guy who came over from a division rival, I know fairly little about Stephenson, but a lot of that's because KC lost two solid OTs to FA in the 2015 offseason and he was neither of them. Maybe they had THREE stud OTs on the same roster, but that seems kind of implausible, especially since they were willing to part with the third one just one season after being flat outbid for the two guys ahead of him on their depth chart.

If we want to talk 2016 predictions based on the vindication of 2015 predictions: I said a year ago that our franchise QB probably wasn't on the roster yet. And stopped just short of saying Kubiak would lead us the Promised Land his first year back, mainly because 1) that one was pretty implausible, too (especially given our line) and 2) between the Broncos, a native Houstonian former Broncos OC/QB and Bum Phillips' son, it was pretty much impossible for me to be objective.