There was hope that a certain highly-paid and rarely-seen right tackle would be the guy for the Denver Broncos this year, but that went sour when the injury bug jumped up and bit him during an offseason workout away from the team facility. Ja'Wuan James was subsequently released.
Now, the Broncos have an open competition with a handful of players to find a starting right tackle. The current favorite is the former Chicago Bear Bobby Massie, who was a free-agent signing, but there are three other candidates breathing down his neck for the job as well, including fan-favorite Calvin Anderson.
Anderson really caught the attention of Broncos fans when a training camp video was released last summer showing him making a great block. He has kept that fan-favorite status through his vague emoji tweets.
While Anderson isn’t the top guy for the right tackle job, he does have a chance to win it. However, he has ground to make up as he dealt with an injury during the recent offseason programs that saw him working almost exclusively on the sidelines. That's going to be a setback he'll have to overcome in training camp and in the preseason.
While Anderson did get to see the field in 2020, starting two games (one at left and one at right tackle), his exposure was minimal and the overall outcome was not good. In his limited pass-blocking snaps, Anderson allowed a total of seven pressures on 85 snaps and earned the second-worst pass-blocking efficiency on the team via Pro Football Focus.
In the running game, Anderson had the worst run-blocking grade from PFF.
Take that with a grain of salt as it was his first real experience and he only got 132 total snaps on offense.
Anderson is a young player who went undrafted out of Texas in 2019 for a reason. There was a lot for him to work on and plenty of room for growth and that may come out in the wash in camp. He won’t get as many swings at the plate as the others to really go and win the right tackle job, so he has to make the most of every rep he gets.
It'll be a surprise if Anderson doesn’t make the roster, but it seems a safe bet that, barring an injury, he'll be with the Broncos in some capacity this season.
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