Week 18 was the first time in about three months that Ben Powers took every rep at left guard. The Broncos handled his return from the IR well, having him split reps with Alex Palczewski the last couple
of weeks before fully taking back his spot against Los Angeles. And since he returned to the field a couple of weeks ago, he’s been good. He’s had a handful of poor plays, some which have put his team into bad positions, including TFLs and sacks.
But this is to be expected when you’re knocking the rust off. The real question is how did he look in his final tune-up game before the NFL Playoffs?
Let’s take a look.
Stat crunch
The Denver offense had 56 snaps that didn’t include kneel downs. There were 24 designed run plays and 32 designed pass plays. Ben Powers played every snap.
Powers had one blown block. He gave up zero TFLs, zero pressures, zero QB hits, and one sack.
He had no penalties on Sunday.
Powers finished the game with two “Bad” blocks, four “Meh” blocks, 15 “Alright” blocks, and 35 “Good” blocks. This earned him 48.25 points out of a possible 56 for a 86.2%.
In run protection he scored 20 points out of a possible 24 (83.3%) and in pass protection he scored 28.25 points out of a possible 32 (88.3%).
In general
Ben Powers looked as good as his grade shows. He was solid. He won most of his blocks and contributed little to any of the offensive shortcomings Denver faced on Sunday.
Some of his best plays came in the run game when he showed off his (possibly underrated) athleticism. He was moving well laterally in their Outside Zone concepts and the Broncos were able to run a handful of Gap Scheme plays, but they really just ran the same play different directions (Sean Payton kept the offense incredibly vanilla).
I think this offense is better with Powers at left guard because of the amount of plays he opens up for the offense. They’re able to get away from their typical zone-heavy run game. Some of Powers’ best work comes when he is pulling. This includes Crack Toss, Power, and Trap plays that help the Broncos hit the line of scrimmage quicker, rather than having to wait for the play to develop like it does in Zone.
When it came to pass protection, he was mostly stout. When he’s able to get his hands on the DT there usually isn’t many reps that he loses. Most of the battle comes from him attempting to get hands on. He gave up a sack when he was too late to react to a slanting DT and had a bad block where he was too slow reacting to a stunt.
But the cool part about that stunt failure is the immediate next stunt the Chargers attempt, Powers is all over it. And that is a bit of a reoccurring theme with this offensive line. Rarely does this unit make the same mistake multiple times in the same game. He also makes a really nice heads-up play to prevent a likely sack late in the game.
The specifics
Run block – Outside Zone – Good Block
Ben Powers wins this block with his first couple of steps.
Look at how much ground he’s able to gain on the first step and you can even see his helmet go from inside the DT to outside of him almost instantly. He then is able to keep his feet running until he secures the outside shoulder and gets his backside hand to the center of the DT’s chest.
And then there at the end you can see that he leverages his hips towards the DT, finishing off the wall be creates. Nice block.
Pass block – Drop back – Meh block
The more I watch this play the more I want to give the DT his credit rather than criticize what Powers does on this play. The initial handfighting is superb. You can see that little wax-on move the DT throws, forcing Powers’ hands up and out, allowing the DT to get to Powers’ chest.
The fix for Powers here would be to keep his hands tighter to his chest, as he sort of leaves them hanging out in space while waiting for the DT to come in range. And you can see that on contact Powers is just slightly over his feet and moves his upper body out toward the DT. He just needs to sit in his base more while waiting for the contact to start.
Pass block – Drop back – Bad block
There’s a few things going through my mind on this play. One being that Powers is too slow to react and needs to work back to the B gap sooner, and I also think that Alex Forsyth may have called the incorrect pass protection and both Powers and Garett Bolles were put into a bad situation here.
Actually, given the initial steps by all five linemen, I think the correct protection is called. Everyone’s first step is to the left, indicating a five-man slide protection to the left. But then the two interior DTs slant to the right, causing Powers, Forsyth, and Meinerz to follow them. Then there is no one for Powers to block and he snaps his head back to the left too slowly.
As soon as the man over the top of him went away he needed to check back to the B gap and he would’ve been able to make it over there in time, probably. This is the result of a really brief lapse of awareness.
Pass block – Drop back – Good block
And after a brief lapse of awareness, here’s an example of great awareness by Powers.
Powers recognizes that there is no one for him to block, and he somehow anticipates this pressure coming off of the edge and makes it all the way across the tackle box to get to the blitzer in the nick of time to prevent Nix from getting sacked.
With the stunt the Chargers run here, it’s up to Meinerz to bump over to the him of Forsyth, Forsyth to pass his slanting DT over to Meinerz, and then pick up the looping DT. So that’s what allows for Powers to even be able to go all the way out to the edge. So that DT that does get free is technically Forsyth’s man.
What a heads-up play by Powers.
Run block – Inside Zone – Good block
There’s nothing like a well-executed double team on Inside Zone. Both Powers and Bolles execute this one at an incredibly high level. The only thing preventing this from being a Great/ Perfect play is the execution of the second-level block by Powers. If he was able to maintain his initial inside leverage on the backer then there would have been nothing to improve on.
It looks like Powers gets a touch too much separation from the backer after the initial contact, allowing the backer to shed him. You want to see Powers with his elbows bent, rather than his arms extended. Space is the enemy in run protection.
This play just makes me say “oh man”. Look at how well Powers passes off the DT to Bolles as he moves up to backer. He gets enough of a shove on the DT and that allows Bolles to absolutely bury the guy. It’s a really nice job by both men.
Final thoughts
I think Powers will be just fine come the Divisional Round. Most of his mistakes were small and I feel like he has gotten better over the last couple of weeks. He’s getting his game legs back and will be able to help the Broncos on what hopefully will be a deep playoff run.
