Broncos roster review: Tackle Garett Bolles (2024)

Garett Bolles is in the final year of his contract with the Broncos. He is one of the few recent Bronco draftees that the Broncos have given a contract after their rookie deal was done.

Position: LT

6-5, 300lb (196cm, 136kg)

Team: Denver Broncos

Born: May 27, 1992 in Lehi, UT (Age: 32-080d)

College: Snow College (UT), Utah (College Stats)

Weighted Career AV (100-95-...): 41 (2488th overall since 1960)

High School: Westlake (UT)

Draft: Denver Broncos in the 1st round (20th overall) of the 2017 NFL Draft.

2023 Stats: PFF overall grade of 75.9, 1072 snaps, 4 holding calls, 3 false starts, 3 sacks allowed (PFF), 4 sacks allowed (SIS), 2.6 Blown Block percentage

By most measures, Bolles was one of best LTs in the NFL in 2023. As always he was very durable playing evert offensive snap for the third time in his career. Among left tackles he had the eighth best blown block rate of 2.60%. His three sacks allowed was tied for second best among starting LTs (only Trent Williams was better - he allowed 0). Cam Robinson (500 snaps) and Donovan Smith (699) snaps only allowed two sacks, but both played significantly fewer snaps than Bolles. By my composite score Bolles was the sixth best left tackle in the NFL in 2023. Composite score uses PFF overall grade, SIS score and total snaps. I’m not sure why SIS has the wrong number of snaps (999) for Bolles.

Bolles has a cap hit of 20 million for the 2024 season which will mean that he is the fifth highest paid LT for the 2024 season. Laremy Tunsil at 25.8 has the largest LT cap number for this season. If Trent Williams is still on the 49ers in 2025, he will have a cap number of 34 million. That goes up to 37.7 million for 2026, when Williams will be 38 years old. While Williams cap hit for 2025 is crazy big, there would be 19 million in dead money were the 49ers to cut him.

Should Bolles play as well in 2024 as he did in 2023, he will be in line for a big payday. While he will be 33 for the 2025 season, he should still get a big contract after this season. I would not be surprised to see him get 22-24 million per season as durable good LTs are very valuable. Andrew Thomas got a 23.5 million per season deal from the Giants and he has not played as well as Bolles during his career. Laremy Tunsil, who is closer in age to Bolles, got 25 million per year from the Texans. Dion Dawkins got 20 million per year from the Bills.

While Bolles has had the physical talent to be elite, he has only gotten any kind of post-season recognition once, in 2020 when he was second team AP AllPro. That being said, Bolles lack of notoriety is mainly because the Broncos have been mostly irrelevant for his entire career. Had he played on a consistently good team, he most likely would have received more post-season recognition than he has.

If the Broncos end up with a winning record this season, we might not be in a good draft position to draft a rookie LT. So it might make sense to resign Bolles. He has stated in the past that he wants to stay in Denver so he might be willing to take less than he could make on the open market to stay with the Broncos. Additionally there is no guarantee that even a highly drafted OT is going to pan out.

There have been 161 OTs taken in the first round since the merger and plenty of them have been busts. In fact about half of them spent the majority of their careers as backups - not even starters.