Bronco starting centers and their performance 2016-2023: was letting Lloyd Cushenberry walk the right decision for Denver?

The Denver Broncos let Lloyd Cushenberry walk in free agency and he signed a large contract with the Titans (four years for 50 million with 26 guaranteed, second highest paid center in the league). That means that Luke Wattenberg, Alex Forsythe or Sam Mustipher will be the starting center for the Broncos in 2024. The first two players have little or no experience as NFL starters and Mustipher has started 42 games in his NFL career, but he has never been very good as a starter.

One comment/commenter sparked this topic. They assumed that either of those three will be a downgrade from LC3. So let’s scrutinize that. How well did LC3 play in 2023? How did that rate compared to other starting centers in 2023? How often do rookie (or effectively rookie) starting centers play well (or at least average)? Since both Forsythe or Wattenberg would effectively be rookie starting centers despite neither being technically rookies. Wattenberg has 128 offensive snaps in the NFL and Forsythe has zero.

To answer these questions we will turn to SISdatahub.com, ProFootballFocus.com and SharpFootballAnalysis.com

Warren Sharp says that LC3 gave up the 3rd fewest pressures among starting centers last season, but that full data set is behind a paywall so I can’t show that (even though I want to). So from that standpoint, any of the Bronco options at starting center for 2024 will be worse than that, since top 3 is elite. I highly doubt that any of the three possibilities will be elite in 2024. That being said, LC3 has always been a better pass blocker than a run blocker, which we can see in the SIS data which is free to view.

According to PFF, LC3 was the 10th best center in the league in 2023 with an overall grade of 73.3.

This was LC3’s best season according to PFF. LC3’s PFF grade by year:

• 2020 - 40.5
• 2021 - 64.2
• 2022 - 56.2
• 2023 - 73.3

So by PFF there were only nine starting centers better than LC3 in 2023 and none of them were rookies (literally or technically). So by that data, we may be in for a downgrade at center next season. LC3 was generally getting better year-over-year, but I’m not sure that warrants one of the biggest contracts for a center in the NFL (second largest by yearly average behind Frank Ragnow who is 3x ProBowler and 2x 2nd team AllPro). LC3 has never gotten any post-season accolades.

What does SIS tell us? According to SIS, LC3 was the 20th ranked starting center in the league in 2023 by points (out of 35 centers with 400 or more offensive snaps).

He did only get blamed for one sack, which was quite good since David Andrews got blamed for six and Mason Cole for five. His blown block rate was 16th at 2.21%. Tyler Linderbaum of the Ravens was the best with a BB% of 0.93%. He only had eight blown block on 864 snaps. Compare that to Tyler Larsen of the Commanders who had a blown block rate of 4.42%.

This author thinks that LC3 will be the 9th best starting center in 2024, but I find some of his selections dubious when viewed in the light of all the available data. David Andrews and Ryan Kelly were both declining last season (or until last season in Kelly’s case), but it’s possible that they could be very good in 2024.

David Andrew’s PFF ratings by season starting in 2020: 67.7, 78.0, 74.5, 71.2

Ryan Kelly’s starting in 2016: 72.4, 60.4, 74.5, 73.0, 69.0, 56.9, 64.3, 77.2

So according to SIS, LC3 in 2023 was a little below average for a starting center, but how does his play in 2023 compare to his play from his previous seasons and how does that compare to other Bronco starting centers over the past eight seasons?

So according to SIS, LC3’s best season was 2021 and that was the second best starting season by Bronco starting center over the last eight seasons (by points in the far right column). Oddly enough the best starting center season by a Bronco over the last eight seasons was the second season that Matt Paradis was the starting center - 2016. By PFF Matt graded out at 90.2 that season which made him a top three starting center that season. He never graded out that well in other year of his career. That was also the last season that the Broncos had a winning record (as painful as that is to type).

Similar to Matt, both Alex Forsythe and Luke Wattenberg played little or none during their first year(s) in the NFL. Matt Paradis did not play at all in his first NFL season, spending the entire year on the practice squad after being a 6th round pick. As an effective rookie in 2015 Matt Paradis graded out at 74.1 by PFF, which is very respectable for a “rookie”.

Relative to the 220 starting center seasons 2016-2023, here are the rankings by SIS points (SIS data does not go back beyond 2016 for OL)

• 35th Paradis 2016
• 72nd LC3 2021
• 81st Connor McGovern 2019
• 111th Graham Glasgow 2022
• 115th LC3 2023
• 141st Paradis 2017
• 193rd Paradis 2018
• 212th LC3 2020

For those who wish to see the whole table I’ll put up the spreadsheet on Google sheets so if you wish, just ask in the comments. One way to view this is that LC3 went from one of the worst starting centers of the past decade to a center who is average relative to every starting center over the past decade.

The two best seasons by a starting center according to SIS were Jason Kelce’s 2022 and 2023, so he definitely went out while he was still at the top of his game.

So now let’s look at how often a starting center is average or better in their first season as a starter. The best example of this is Creed Humphrey who was one of the best starting centers in the league as a rookie (according to PFF who graded him at 91.4 as a rookie in 2021). By SIS here are some other centers who were average or above in their first season as a starting center recently (25 points is average):

• AQ Shipley
• Alec Mack
• Andre James
• Ben Jones
• Bradley Bozeman
• Chase Roullier
• Coleman Shelton
• Connor McGovern
• David Andrews
• Erik McCoy
• Hjalte Froholdt
• Jake Brendel
• Josh Myers
• Mitch Morse
• Nick Gates
• Robert Hainsey
• Ryan Jensen
• Ryan Kelly
• Tyler Linderbaum

Another center who was very good as a rookie is Tyler Linderbaum. His PFF overall grade, 74.7, as a rookie was the 6th best among starting centers in 2022. While some of these, like Alex Mack, Tyler Linderbaum and Ryan Kelly were first round picks, plenty of others were either day three or undrafted like David Andrews, Andre James, Ben Jones, Jake Brendel, Ryan Jensen, and Coleman Shelton.

So the fact that Wattenberg and Forsythe were day three picks and Sam Mustipher went undrafted really doesn’t inform us much in terms of whether or not they can effectively replace LC3 in 2024.

It’s a different study (that I might still do) to look at the individual situation of the centers who have played average or better as first-year starting centers recently (were they playing with 4 of 5 starters on the OL from the previous year, 3 of 5, etc). That being said, the only piece of the Bronco starting OL that is changing relative to 2023 is the center position. So whoever steps into the starting role will have veteran pairs of guards and tackles on either side of them. That helps immensely when you are playing center - I speak from experience after getting thrown into a game as a freshman in college when the two guys in front of me on the depth chart both got hurt. The rest of the OL was all upperclassmen and they helped me immensely (even though we still lost the game).