Broncos Film Room: What's Graham Glasgow's ceiling?

With the Denver Broncos’ first true free-agent signing of the 2020 season, Graham Glasgow, the Orange & Blue strengthen their struggling offensive line with the addition of a do-it-all blocker who could fill three different spots on the interior.

A former Michigan standout and third-round selection, Glasgow has carved out a fine career for himself to earn his shiny new four-year $44 million contract.

Here’s what the Broncos get out of the four-year veteran, with over 20 different plays from five different games.

Note: Glasgow is No. 60, playing right guard in all the clips below.

What can you expect

The first thing that stood out about Glasgow, before even jumping into the film, was how efficient he’s been as a pro, steadily improving every season. In 2019 with the Detroit Lions he had his best year, allowing zero sacks, with one holding penalty in 15 starts, all on a bad offense that utilized three different starting quarterbacks. 2018 wasn’t all that worse, giving up just one hold and 1.5 sacks.

That production and efficiency showed up instantly on tape, as Glasgow might not be the flashiest but finds ways to get the job done snap-after-snap with remarkable consistency in all phases of the game. Maybe not a tone-setter or an elite mover but rather decent in both areas making up for a lack of elite traits with high-end IQ and size for the position.

This showed up as the Michigan man went toe-to-toe with all-world defensive tackles in Fletcher Cox and Chris Jones last season.

Which then meant when he faced youngsters like Dre’Mont Jones, he was pretty dominant.

Glasgow’s also proven to be very durable as a pro, missing just one start since his rookie season.

And we still might not have covered his biggest selling point of all, which might just be his versatility to play center or either guard spot—while he had his best season in the NFL at right guard, he has experience playing on the left side in college. 

Beyond his positional versatility, Glasgow posses the lateral mobility, downhill power and enough strength at the point of attack to fit in any scheme.

As a zone blocker, he’s deceptively athletic and excels at getting to the second level or moving laterally.

Here’s he is at the second level taking care of a linebacker,

and here he is in a wide zone showing the lateral movment.

Glasgow is a perfect zone blocker with his high IQ, nice movement skills and a solid cut blocker too.

Everything he does is calculated and under control, rarely whiffing on blocks when getting to the second level allowing his athleticism to play up that much more. 

Last season we saw the Detriot Lions run behind Glasgow as he took over drives as a run blocker in a few different games. Glasgow can do it all and the Lions trusted him to run behind him on pulls, on wide zones and everything in between. 

Here’s a quick series of plays where the Lions specifically ran the ball behind Glasgow and were rewarded:

Here’s a pull block to punctuate a red-zone drive.

Below Glasgow unleashes two key pull blocks for his back to run behind.

Here Glasgow helps keep Chris Jones out of the picture and gets to the second level completely engulfing a linebacker.

Here Glasgow gets on the linebacker instantly on the second level for a big hole.

Or he can just blow a defensive lineman right off his spot to lead to a huge run.

Or simply overpower a defensive tackle to open up the type of hole you could drive a truck through.

Simply put, Glasgow was a key run blocker for Detroit this past season thanks to his lateral mobility as a zone blocker and also as a pull blocker, all added to his smarts, technique, and power to seal off running lanes.

As shown above he’s also a stout downhill blocker and excels getting to the second level to deliver key blocks. You’ll notice when Glasgow has defenders in his grasp they rarely slip away.

Yet, with all that said, pass protection is where Glasgow might present the most value, especially as a right guard.

I wrote long ago about how the best guards play on the right side and always felt strongly that big signings like Ronald Leary should paly on the right side to maximize their value—a point of contention for Leary throughout his career in Denver. 

This comes down to two reasons; right guards are going to lead the way on a greater number of runs, and clearly, Glasgow is a valuable asset in that regard, but more importantly, right guards are going to face more one-on-one blocking opportunities, especially in pass protection.

As a pas protector, Glasgow possesses smooth hips, great balance and a phenomenal anchor to withstand bull rushers and recover from even the strongest defenders.

He has terrific IQ and will finish off double teams with a bit of an edge. His supreme awareness with his light feet and lateral mobility make him very efficient picking up blitzes as he’s always locked in with his head on a swivel.

Watch how well he picks up the safety coming on a bit of a delayed blitz here.

Everything Glasgow does is balanced, he doesn’t overextend or overcommit and he uses his great length, for a guard at 6-foot-6, to recover when beat initially. He also isn’t very susceptible to counter moves because of his steady, balanced approach. 

His feet combined with his smarts and all his other strengths are also a big part of why he doesn’t have many holding penalties, keeping his weight back and staying in front of defenders at all times, extending his arms nicely to keep rushers at bay and keeping his chest clean, gaining extra time in pass pro with his strong hands and reach.

What not to expect

While it’s clear my former 145th prospect on my 2016 NFL Draft rankings had outplayed my projection, the knocks on Glasgow was a lack of superior tools, the kind of tools that could make him a top–10 player at his position.

That knock remains the same, to some extent, yet, in spite of possessing decent but not elite lateral mobility or strength at the point of attack, Glasgow’s found ways to excell.

So while elite athletes like Fletcher Cox can overpower him and out leverage Glasgow with superior athleticism, the veteran guard more often than not recovers.

Here Dre’Mont Jones beats him off the snap with his electric first step but again, Glasgow recovers.

While rare athletes at defensive tackle will give him a real fight it’s his less than elite lateral mobility that can make Glasgow susceptible to stunts if asked to recover and get to a spot at a higher pace than expected. He essentially needs to outthink opponents without being able to rely solely on his athleticism.

Glasgow also won’t overpower or blow defenders off the line, especially bigger nose tackles. This also makes bigger nose guards effective in jolting No. 60 off his spot initially on bull rushes, though again, he has a nice anchor and the ability to recover.

You could also say Glasgow lacks a nasty streak. Yes, he’s very solid and reliable but not a mauler or an imposing tone-setting type—to me, this actually shows the Broncos are preferring trustworthy effective blockers rather than flashy toolsy ones, a good sign.

While not used a ton on screens, Glasgow can be pretty good, though he might not be the smoothest mover but sells screens well and can get out in space as long as it’s on his terms and he can set it up.

So while he can get beat to his spots at times, when asked to get out in space where he can sell screens and dictate the timing, he’ll still be an important asset. 

Finally, the oddest part of watching Glasgow’s tape was that he was used in a three-man guard rotation in Detriot, only playing all 100-percent of the snaps in just four games this season despite clearly being better than anyone who was rotated in for him. For the sake of full disclosure in assessing Glasgow’s value, it’s worth mentioning.

Is he worth it?

Even if Glasgow is just a steady starter but never a true anchor on the line, he’ll have justified his contract and as long as he can remain the durable player he’s been thus far. In fact, Glasgow could present a big upgrade for Denver, with the potential to be the best O-line signing in the MileHigh City since Louis Vasquez.

What position Glasgow ends up playing will be interesting. The center position might present the most value, though No. 60’s performance at right guard in 2019 will be hard to overlook. The advantage of having Glasgow at right guard would be that the Broncos would always have someone next two their two most reliable starters on the line, Dalton Risner or Glasgow.

For those who abide by the theory that a football team can’t get away with having two bad offensive lineman next to one another, having two strong guards certainly accomplishes that goal.

Glasgow is a safe pickup with very intriguing tape and versatility, allowing new offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur plenty of freedom.

Considering the market was restricted for high-end offensive line starters once Brandon Scherff and Joe Thuney were tagged, Glasgow already looks like one of the better signing of the Elway era.