Do they give merit badges for awesomeness? While Sean Payton was jetting to the scouting combine, his left tackle was hanging out with Boy Scouts.
“We need guys to come in that (locker room) that have great attitude,” Garett Bolles, the Broncos’ Pro Bowl blocker, told me Monday morning at Ball Arena, just before the big guy took the stage at Scouting Colorado’s Annual Sports Breakfast. “(We need them) to have a work ethic to come in here and fit into our culture.
“Because our culture is special. And when you have a great culture, you don’t want to put somebody in it (where) they can ruin it.”
An Eagle Scout, trustworthy and loyal to the last, helped set the tone for the defending AFC West champs. Did you know the man who kept Bo Nix’s blind side clean last fall — zero sacks allowed, according to Pro Football Focus, which named him the best pass-protector in the league — received scouting’s highest honor back in 2008?
All scouts who reach Eagle level have to complete a service project first. Bolles made toy cars to be donated to children in Mexico, delivered personally by a local Santa Claus.
“And it was really cool to see the kids’ faces of the final products,” Bolles said. “And (Santa) would pack them all up — we would’ve put them in this big red sack. And he would fly to Mexico and deliver cars to all these rural areas.”
“So, basically,” I said, “you were the world’s biggest elf.”
Santa’s not-so-little helper smiled at that one. Will Ferrell ain’t got nothing on No. 72 in blue.
“The moral of the story is, you can’t give up on what’s important in life,” Bolles told the kids on Monday. “You’ve got to find your why, why you do what you do. I learned that early on.”
And those lessons stuck. Scouting Colorado gave Bolles an award commemorating his Eagle Scout days. Then it handed him a trophy shaped like a round, wooden slab, as if cut from the trunk of some mighty tree.
“Maybe back then, I didn’t appreciate (the Boy Scouts) as much as I do now,” Bolles said. “Because I think it teaches you so much as a man — teaching you to be disciplined and learning the local laws of where you live. And from doing that to doing a service project to get your Eagle Scout (requirements). Just giving back to the community is truly what scouts is about.”
Whether because of Payton or in spite of him, the Broncos have piled up a lot of guys who are easy to root for. The veterans, especially. Courtland Sutton shook off injuries and inconsistency to lead the orange and blue out of the wilderness and into the sunshine. Alex Singleton is as forthright and funny off the field as he is firm and flinty on it.
But has anyone in Dove Valley, or maybe anyone in Denver sports, come as far as Bolles has over the last seven years?
All the crapola Riley Moss gets now, Bolles took for months. NFLPenalties.com, which tracks game-by-game infractions, credited the Broncos tackle in 2018 with committing 10 penalties, nine of them holding calls, and another 10 flags in ’19.
Fun fact: The site pegged him with just two holding calls last fall. Since 2022, he’s averaged 3.75 holding flags per season —only about one a month, give or take. Pro Football Focus’ scouts said he went sackless over 803 pass-blocking snaps and gave him the best pass-protection grade (91.0) of any NFL offensive lineman.
He’s gone from being Mr. Available, to paraphrase John Elway, to Mr. Essential, a master craftsman who worked his tail off to become the best at his trade.
Kirby sucked it up and went back to work.
What’s that? Who’s Kirby? That’s the nickname a Scoutmaster gave Bolles some two decades ago, a reference to Kirby vacuum cleaners.
Long story short, a teenaged Bolles was on a grueling mountain hike with his troop, and his elders challenged him to finish the darn thing.
“And I said, ‘Well, I’m just going to suck it up and get up this mountain,’” Bolles recalled. “So (‘Kirby’) was my nickname.”
It’s not how many times you get knocked down. It’s the times you climb right back up that hill again.
Bolles knows plenty about getting up — during those scouting years, he also was a youth hockey player up in Utah, an unabashed puckhead.
So, yeah, that video of No. 72 celebrating Team USA’s historic men’s hockey gold medal early Sunday, the one his wife put on social media, came from the heart. And from the past.
“I loved it. It was fascinating,” Bolls said. “All my family played, so growing up was just, (all the time), it was hockey.
“I remember when Sidney Crosby, when he was with Reebok back in the day, they made the 9K pumps. If you had the 9K pumps on your feet, you were ‘legit.’”
Bolles’ game was legit, too. He did travel teams. Mini Mites. Mites. Squirts. Bantams. All the way through roughly age 16. He was a defenseman originally.
“And then they moved me to center,” he continued, “so that I could body off the guy to get the puck back to our defense on the open draws, And then I played left wing.”
Can you imagine the forechecks?
“And that’s sort of why I stopped,” Bolles explained. “Because my feet just started growing. And then I’m (like), ‘Do you guys have size 15 skates?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s not really a size of skate that we normally use.’”
Hey, the NHL’s loss was Broncos Country’s gain. Eight years ago, few Broncomaniacs were rocking a 72 jersey in public. Once Bolles is done in Denver, that 72 is going into the Ring of Fame.
Although the ring GB wants most has a tiny Lombardi Trophy on its head. And the sort of diamonds that twinkle back like a mountain sky at night.
“I remember one of our (Scouting) leaders would drop us off in the middle of somewhere and we had to navigate ourselves back with the compass,” Bolles chuckled. “And who uses the compass now? These are all life lessons … just all the life lessons that I learned have truly helped me become the man I am today.”
Bolles was a finalist for the NFL’s first Protector of the Year Award. It went to Bears guard Joe Thuney instead. Roger Goodell should demand a recount.