Denver Broncos guard/center Quinn Meinerz wasn’t completely happy with his performance at 330 pounds last season. Then the Broncos hired Nathaniel Hackett as head coach, bringing in his offense that requires offensive linemen to move around more than they did last season.
“This offense is definitely predicated more on running the ball, running off the ball, being a lot faster and really trying to make the defense play the entire field,” Meinerz said last week.
Those two factors led Meinerz to a decision — time to lose some weight.
“I kind of had a sense that this offense was going to be predicated on speed and I wasn’t happy with some of the positions I was in last year with some of the things that I was doing wrong,” Meinerz said. “I took it upon myself to lose some weight, I’d say around 10 pounds. I’m trying to stay around 320 or a couple of pounds under. That’s where I’m feeling the best right now.”
Hackett brought in two of his colleague from the Green Bay Packers — Justin Outten as offensive coordinator and Butch Barry as offensive line coach. Together, Outten and Barry will help Denver’s returning offensive players learn and adjust to Hackett’s new system.
“Coach Barry is an intense coach. Everyone is intense,” Meinerz said. “That’s what you love about being coached by someone like that. He’s really focused on getting us to run off the ball. Like I was saying, that was part of the reason [with] losing all the weight and stuff. So far, it’s been great to be coached by Coach Barry and I’m excited to keep progressing throughout the year with him.”
Meinerz is a versatile offensive lineman who can play both as a guard and as a center. If he doesn’t win a starting job at one of those positions this summer, he’ll be one of the team’s top backup swing options at guard/center. After impressing last season and losing some weight to become more agile, though, Meinerz is probably a safe bet to win a starting job at training camp.
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