Denver Broncos tackle Garett Bolles has finally cracked one of the NFL’s top-10 positional lists, landing at No. 10 in Jeremy Fowler’s latest ESPN ranking of offensive tackles.
For Bolles, it’s a milestone that fits the arc of his career. He wasn’t an instant star.
He worked through early struggles, kept building, and eventually turned himself into an above-average tackle. Last season brought the biggest surprise yet: an All-Pro berth at age 34.
The numbers help explain why he made the cut. Fowler reported that Bolles gave up five sacks on 630 pass-blocking reps, and his 94 percent pass block win rate ranked ninth among all tackles.
Still, the placement wasn’t universally embraced. Fowler noted that some voters felt Bolles didn’t quite belong in the top 10, pointing to his limitations compared with other elite tackles on the list. His work in the run game also drew scrutiny, especially after he posted a 77.7 percent block win rate last season.
Even with that debate, Bolles has clearly benefited from Denver’s shift under head coach Sean Payton. Payton has made the offensive line a priority, and Bolles has responded as he’s been given room to develop.
One anonymous NFL coordinator who spoke to Fowler praised what Bolles brings in pass protection.
"Pass protection, he's one of the most consistent," an NFL coordinator said. "He can handle his own without help. He was a big part of the Broncos' success on offense last year."
Bolles’ value to the Broncos goes beyond the field, too. He was an Eagle scout growing up and has kept that commitment going in the Denver area. He’s also earned a reputation as one of the team’s hardest workers, and he has pointed to encouragement from quarterback Bo Nix and his own focus on the mental side of the game as part of the reason for his rise.
“Doing the little things, by watching film, knowing where my hand placements are, doing a lot of hand drills, but mostly just a mental thing,” he told ESPN early in his career when he was struggling. “I spent a lot of time on the mental aspect.
I had the physical, the tools, to take care of the techniques, [but] it was all mental. If your mind is not right you can't play this game.
In Other News...
Sean Payton Just Entered The Broncos Stadium Debate
Sean Payton stepped into the grass-versus-turf conversation around the Broncos future home, and he did it with the kind of practical lens you would expect from a coach who has spent years thinking about footing, wear and tear and how the game actually plays. He said there are real differences in football depending on the surface and even the footwear, and he also made clear that more stadiums seem likely to land on grass where they can.
The complication, of course, is that not every building makes that easy. Payton pointed to the logistical hurdles of putting grass into covered stadiums, which is where the debate gets less philosophical and more operational for Denver as it looks ahead to its new place in 2030. For the Broncos, the field itself is not just a football choice but a money question too, with maintenance costs part of the calculation as the stadium plans continue to take shape. [Read more 🡒]
ESPN Just Gave Broncos Fans Another Reason To Be Furious Over Garett Bolles
For Broncos fans, Garett Bolles has become one of the more frustrating names in the league because the rsum keeps getting better while the national respect never seems to fully catch up. ESPNs latest ranking of the top 10 NFL tackles for 2026 put the Denver left tackle at No. 10, a spot that lands just after a season in which he earned first-team All-Pro honors, started all 17 games and gave up only five sacks while posting a 94% pass block win rate.
The ranking also reopened an old argument about how much value voters place on Bolles beyond pass protection, with some still viewing him as limited enough to cap his ceiling in these kinds of lists. For a player who has been so steady and so important to Denvers offense, the debate is less about whether he belongs in the conversation and more about why it still feels like he has to keep proving it. [Read more 🡒]