If you're in the market for a 2024 Ford Bronco, the engine you're likely salivating over is a twin-turbo 3.0L V6.
If you're in the market for a winning Broncos season, fans should be salivating over the high-priced engine powering Sean Payton's offense: Denver's offensive line.
“We value the offensive line," Payton said at his year-opening press conference prior to the kick off of training camp. “It’s the most important position group on your roster. I think it permeates your building.”
Good or bad, this season's offensive success will be defined by the play of the five large men crouched underneath whoever Payton chooses to play quarterback.
“If we win a game it’s on us, if we lose a game it’s on us," right guard Quinn Meinerz said. "That’s just the mentality that we have.”
Meinerz is one of the anchors on Denver's offensive line. Prior to being drafted in 2021, Meinerz left his college home at Wisconsin-Whitewater to forge his NFL mettle in the darkness of his dad's basement.
“[I] used his weight room in the basement, we nicknamed it 'the Grit Dungeon,'" Meinerz said. "It’s a dark unfinished basement with just a [weightlifting] rack in there. He would drop off like 70 lbs of ground beef and a freezer that he bought. He was just like 'hey let me know when you run out' because that’s all that I was eating, rice and ground beef for every meal.”
He parlayed pounds of ground beef into filet mignon — signing one of the richest guard contracts in the NFL prior to the start of this season.
But money means little if Meinerz doesn't maul opposing defenses.
“For the most part, the team goes as far as the offensive line," Meinerz said. "That kinda shows in this offensive system and the success that Sean [Payton] has had in the past. We’ve understood since this new staff came in that the pressure was going to be put on the offensive line.”
“I’ve watched that man grow up," Broncos' left tackle Garett Bolles said, speaking about Meinerz. "From the time he’s walked in here and put on that Broncos jersey to now, you know he’s anchoring that right side.”
Bolles is entering his eighth season in the NFL and this is just the second time he'll start the year with the same coaching staff he left off with at the end of last season.
“I think I played my best ball last time I did this, [being] in the 2nd [year] in [an] offense in 2020," Bolles said, who was an Associated Press All Pro selection after that 2020 season.
Coaching continuity and four of his five offensive linemen returning builds a foundation that should allow Bolles' elite athleticism room to roam.
“My body’s fresh," Bolles said. "I feel like I’m 25 to be honest with you, maybe 22, sometimes probably a little bit younger. But I feel great, my body feels great, my mind feels great. I’m the strongest and fastest I’ve ever been. At 32 years old that just speaks volumes for the people we have here that put me on the right plan.”
“He’s a tremendous athlete," Payton said. "He’s extremely athletic. You don’t feel 8 years [in the NFL], sometimes you feel that when you work with a player, but I don’t feel that with him.”
No matter who coach Payton chooses to play under center, Bolles, Meinerz and the rest of this Broncos line will be the driving force behind either the success or failure of the offense as a whole.
