Usually, Quinn Meinerz is the one making the pancakes. Not the one at their mercy. And yet, in another Broncos’ drive against the Chargers on Sunday that stalled out before it really even began, the All-Pro right guard found himself on his backside against the rush.
Courtesy of his own man.
On a 1st-and-10 at the Chargers’ 20-yard-line, Los Angeles defensive tackle Teair Tart got a nice jump off the line. The Broncos’ protection plan on the play — center Alex Forsyth pulling to the edge — was a step late, and Meinerz got tangled up with Forsyth as he kicked over to check Tart. And in one play-killing blow, running back RJ Harvey’s attempt to throw a chip-block knocked over the 320-pound Meinerz. Not Tart.
Quarterback Bo Nix, in a sight much too frequent in the 19-3 win, was left to backpedal for his life and loft a duck of an incompletion.
“They was just blitzing us a lot,” left tackle Garett Bolles told The Denver Post in the postgame locker room. “That’s a good defense … I mean, it is what it is. We gotta get right and do our things.”
Broncos head coach Sean Payton hinted postgame Sunday that “you play a game a certain way,” as the Chargers rested a slew of key starters in a game barely fit for national television. Nix’s 23 pass attempts traveled an average distance of 1.2 yards in the Broncos’ win, the second-lowest mark of any qualified quarterback in any game this season, according to Next Gen Stats. The offensive recipe called for plenty of vanilla.
But Denver also left plenty of downfield shots on the board Sunday, in part due to the most porous pass-protection performance of the season. Nix was sacked four times, his highest mark of the season and tied for the highest mark of his two-year Broncos career. Defensive coordinator Jesse Minter drew up two first-quarter looks that sent completely unblocked rushers at Nix, and the Chargers twisted Denver’s offensive line around multiple times with exotic blitzes that sent rushers looping around to opposite gaps.
This becomes particularly important in two weekends. If Los Angeles beats No. 2-seeded New England on Sunday, the Chargers will be right back in Denver next weekend — this time with a fully-loaded complement of outside linebacker Tuli Tuipulotu and safety Derwin James. And no defense has confounded a stout Denver front this season like Los Angeles.
Nix’s two most-pressured games of the season have come against the Chargers in Week 18 (40.6% of his dropbacks) … and against the Chargers in Week 3 (43.8%).
“We’ll go back and figure out what we need to do better,” center Alex Forsyth told The Post on Sunday. “It starts with us up front getting tempo to the line of scrimmage, so we have enough time to make IDs and stuff, see the defense.”
That last line is key, and explains why Denver looked a step slow at times against Los Angeles’s rush. Nix made waves for barking at the sideline to “wake up” in the second quarter against Los Angeles, and the quarterback said candidly postgame he felt like he “failed” the offense by not operating with more urgency and tempo in the huddle.
Delayed time to the line of scrimmage leaves less time to scope out defensive schemes. Less time to scope out defensive schemes leads to pass-protection breakdowns. Pass-protection breakdowns lead to a massive drop-off in offensive efficiency.
Nix is an adept improviser when escaping the pocket, but a season’s worth of data now paints the picture of a quarterback who struggles when his timing’s thrown off: Nix ranked 31st out of 32 qualified quarterbacks in passer rating on throws under pressure (54.5), according to Next Gen Stats.
Individually, too, there are some lingering concerns about the efficacy of Nix’s front. Left guard Ben Powers is just now fully ramped up from a biceps tear that wiped out much of his 2025 season. Center Forsyth, filling in for the injured Luke Wattenberg, suffered an ankle injury against Los Angeles and gave up five quarterback pressures in 55 snaps, according to Pro Football Focus. Pro Bowl left tackle Garett Bolles played on a hurt ankle himself for the entirety of the second half.
Bolles insisted he’d be “good” postgame, and this week’s bye will help the front’s health. Operationally, though, Denver will need more from everyone involved in protection.
“Next time we get in that spot, I gotta have better urgency, be a little bit of a spark myself,” Nix said Sunday. “And then the rest of the guys will do the same.”
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