ENGLEWOOD, Colo — This may be difficult to believe, but in signing a four-year contract worth $18 million a year while wearing a gold tuxedo for the occasion Monday, Quinn Meinerz — a right guard mind you — took a bit of a team discount.
He could have played one more season, bulldozed dozens more linebackers and defensive linemen while local bloggers shared the videos of his mass destruction across social media, then used the leverage of free agency next March to strike a deal worth $20 million to $24 million a year.
“That definitively is A way to think about it,’’ Meinerz said in a sit-down interview Tuesday with 9NEWS. “It was myself and my family excited about the opportunity to stay here long-term. I mean this place obviously has a special place in my heart. This is the team that took a chance on me and drafted me. So it was very important to us to stay here long term. So was glad to have got something done.”
And not only get the deal done, but get it done before training camp. Rich beyond his wildest Wisconsin dreams one day, Meinerz was ready to put on the sweaty pads and get down and dirty and grind through life as an interior blocker the next.
“That’s the fun part,’’ Meinerz said. “Now it’s something I don’t have to think about anymore. Even though I wasn’t really thinking about it, to be honest. I knew my agent [Ron Slavin] was going to take care of whatever needed to happen. But it’s nice to have it done, here long term. Going to training camp and now it’s just getting ready for football.”
The Broncos and football industry know Meinerz is one of the league’s best right guards. But it’s difficult for an interior blocker to gain notice outside the intramural cocoon. Meinerz has yet to receive Pro Bowl or All Pro honors. Admittedly, this left him disappointed at the end of last season. But young guards on losing teams get little recognition.
Maybe the accolades will come this year now that he’s received a sizeable contract. With offensive linemen, contracts bring them a measure of acclaim. So does playing on a team that makes a deep playoff run. The Broncos have not been to the playoffs since winning it all in 2015, when Meinerz was in the seventh grade.
“That’s an individual, personal goal,’’ Meinerz said of postseason honors. “That can go in the back room, but it’s not something I’m really focused on. I focused on it a little too much last year, wanting that individual goal.
“This year and moving forward those things will take care of itself. If it happens it happens, if it doesn’t it doesn’t. I know who I am as a player. And the people in the NFL know who I am as a player. I appreciate that respect more than anything. Right now it’s just about winning football games.’’
No matter how much money a player makes – Meinerz was scheduled to make $3.6 million this year in the fourth and final season of his third-round, rookie contract but now will make $24 million with his new deal – he must continue to work on his craft. Meinerz mauls defenders in a way that makes run blocking his obvious strength.
But there’s still an element to his run blocking game he wants to improve on.
“My biggest thing is the backside cutoffs in the run game, I’m trying to work on,’’ he said. “I mean there’s always stuff to keep improving on and adding more tools in the pass game.
“I was trying to build a foundation last year with this new [Sean Payton-coached offensive] system, and now I’m trying to build on the foundation and adding more tools so that way my pass sets aren’t predictable. What I’m doing isn’t predictable. Creating more of a chess match so it’s more in my favor throughout the course of a game where I’m not getting timed up.
“Pass pro is typically looked at as being passive, and not making it passive anymore because I know that I can be a little more aggressive.”
The question is which quarterback will he be protecting. Maybe, it’s not really a question. Eventually first-round rookie Bo Nix will be the Broncos’ starting quarterback. But to start camp, the QB competition is open, with veterans Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson getting a chance.
Meinerz's initial reaction on Nix?
“First impressions, first thing I noticed was I could get a good sense of his maturity,’’ Meinerz said. “Typically you can kind of tell who the rookies are in the building. With Bo, if I didn’t know he was a first-round pick quarterback I wouldn’t have thought of him as a rookie.
“Excited to see how he grows throughout this competition and going through his first training camp. The first training camp, you don’t even know it’s happening. At least that’s how it was for me (laughs).”
Head coach Sean Payton has so far given each of the three quarterbacks the same amount of reps with the first-team offense. Payton said Tuesday that QB rotation would continue through the early days of training camp.
“It’s not too much of a difference,’’ Meinerz said of having a new QB each day. “Our job stays the same. We have to run the play. If it’s a pass play we have to protect. If it’s a run play we’ve got to know where our assignments are. I will leave the deciding to the coaches. I’ve got to play right guard.”
Meinerz was asked about the feeling in the locker room as the Broncos players reconvened Tuesday for another season.
“Initially, everybody’s super excited to get back to playing football,’’ he said. “You feel the energy. I know people are talking about how young of a team we are -- you can feel the energy, we’re excited to get to work. We got a little taste at the end of the season last year of what kind of team we can be. And so it’s about building on that and collecting a few more wins.”