{"id":772672,"date":"2026-02-24T07:19:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T07:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/772672\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T07:19:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T07:19:20","slug":"why-will-broncos-repeat-as-afc-west-champs-culture-garett-bolles-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/772672\/","title":{"rendered":"Why will Broncos repeat as AFC West champs? Culture, Garett Bolles says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do they give merit badges<\/a> for awesomeness? While Sean Payton was jetting to the scouting combine,<\/a> his left tackle<\/a> was hanging out with Boy Scouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need guys to come in that (locker room) that have great attitude,\u201d Garett Bolles,<\/a> the Broncos\u2019 Pro Bowl blocker<\/a>, told me Monday morning at Ball Arena, just before the big guy took the stage at Scouting Colorado\u2019s Annual Sports Breakfast.<\/a> \u201c(We need them) to have a work ethic to come in here and fit into our culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause our culture is special. And when you have a great culture, you don\u2019t want to put somebody in it (where) they can ruin it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s blind side clean last fall \u2014 zero sacks allowed, according to Pro Football Focus, which named him the best pass-protector in the league<\/a> \u2014 received scouting\u2019s highest honor back in 2008?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it was really cool to see the kids\u2019 faces of the final products,\u201d Bolles said. \u201cAnd (Santa) would pack them all up \u2014 we would\u2019ve put them in this big red sack. And he would fly to Mexico and deliver cars to all these rural areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, basically,\u201d I said, \u201cyou were the world\u2019s biggest elf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santa\u2019s not-so-little helper smiled at that one. Will Ferrell ain\u2019t got nothing<\/a> on No. 72 in blue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moral of the story is, you can\u2019t give up on what\u2019s important in life,\u201d Bolles told the kids on Monday. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to find your why, why you do what you do. I learned that early on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe back then, I didn\u2019t appreciate (the Boy Scouts) as much as I do now,\u201d Bolles said. \u201cBecause I think it teaches you so much as a man \u2014 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But has anyone in Dove Valley, or maybe anyone in Denver sports, come as far as Bolles has over the last seven years?<\/p>\n

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 \u201919.<\/p>\n

Fun fact: The site pegged him with just two holding calls last fall.<\/a> Since 2022, he\u2019s averaged 3.75 holding flags per season \u2014only about one a month, give or take. Pro Football Focus\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Kirby sucked it up and went back to work.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s that? Who\u2019s Kirby? That\u2019s the nickname a Scoutmaster gave Bolles some two decades ago, a reference to Kirby vacuum cleaners.<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I said, \u2018Well, I\u2019m just going to suck it up and get up this mountain,’\u201d Bolles recalled. \u201cSo (\u2018Kirby\u2019) was my nickname.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not how many times you get knocked down. It\u2019s the times you climb right back up that hill again.<\/p>\n

Bolles knows plenty about getting up \u2014 during those scouting years, he also was a youth hockey player up in Utah, an unabashed puckhead.<\/p>\n

So, yeah, that video of No. 72 celebrating Team USA\u2019s historic men\u2019s hockey gold medal<\/a> early Sunday, the one his wife put on social media, came from the heart. And from the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved it. It was fascinating,\u201d Bolls said. \u201cAll my family played, so growing up was just, (all the time), it was hockey.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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 \u2018legit.’\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Bolles\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then they moved me to center,\u201d he continued, \u201cso 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can you imagine the forechecks?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s sort of why I stopped,\u201d Bolles explained. \u201cBecause my feet just started growing. And then I\u2019m (like), \u2018Do you guys have size 15 skates?\u2019 And they\u2019re like, \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s not really a size of skate that we normally use.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Hey, the NHL\u2019s loss was Broncos Country\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Although the ring GB wants most has a tiny Lombardi Trophy on its head.<\/a> And the sort of diamonds that twinkle back like a mountain sky at night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Bolles chuckled. \u201cAnd who uses the compass now? These are all life lessons \u2026 just all the life lessons that I learned have truly helped me become the man I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bolles was a finalist for the NFL\u2019s first Protector of the Year Award. It went to Bears guard Joe Thuney<\/a> instead. Roger Goodell should demand a recount.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do they give merit badges for awesomeness? While Sean Payton was jetting to the scouting combine, his left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[1991,3882,15050,374,925,232,7244,5748,564,1270,231,258,2426,3254,7,1331,1713,12995,5316,6742,929,4588,926,6,4475,4912,1514,1902,80310,5295,1813,48229,9,2833,1599],"class_list":{"0":"post-772672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-afc-west","9":"tag-alex-singleton","10":"tag-ball-arena","11":"tag-bears","12":"tag-bo-nix","13":"tag-broncos","14":"tag-broncos-country","15":"tag-broncos-takes","16":"tag-colorado","17":"tag-courtland-sutton","18":"tag-denver","19":"tag-denver-broncos","20":"tag-denverbroncos","21":"tag-family","22":"tag-football","23":"tag-front-range","24":"tag-garett-bolles","25":"tag-hockey","26":"tag-injuries","27":"tag-john-elway","28":"tag-latest-headlines","29":"tag-mexico","30":"tag-more-broncos-news","31":"tag-nfl","32":"tag-nhl","33":"tag-pro-bowl","34":"tag-riley-moss","35":"tag-roger-goodell","36":"tag-santa-claus","37":"tag-sean-keeler","38":"tag-sean-payton","39":"tag-sidney-crosby","40":"tag-sports","41":"tag-sports-columnists","42":"tag-utah"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116124396182623097","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}