Garett Bolles gives Broncos much-needed offensive line help

Garett Bolles’ football career has followed an unconventional path. Before becoming an All-Pac-12 offensive tackle at Utah, he first served the Church of Latter Day Saints by doing two years of missionary work and then spent his first two undergrad years at tiny Snow College.

One transfer and one dominant year of pass protection later, he’s jumping to the NFL. The Broncos selected Bolles with the No. 20 pick of the 2017 NFL draft, the first offensive lineman off the board.

The offensive lineman drought was something we hadn’t seen in 35 years.

Bolles will have to prove a 25-year-old tackle with just one year of NCAA experience is worth a premier pick. The raw prospect has the athleticism to be a Pro Bowl blocker, but he’ll have plenty of hurdles to overcome first. After turning his life around and putting the disciplinary issues that had him suspended or kicked out of five different high schools behind him, one thing is clear — Bolles is resilient enough to make it work.

”God changed me,’’ he told SB Nation’s Thomas George. “From old to new. From someone I don’t even recognize anymore. My life was crazy. Adversity changed me.’’

Bolles is an aggressive tackle with nimble feet and upper-tier athleticism. He dazzled at the NFL Combine, ranking among the top offensive linemen in the agility drills and rattling off a 4.9-second 40-yard dash at nearly 300 pounds. He moves well laterally, potentially better than any other prospect in 2017.

That quickness keeps speed rushers in front of him, where he engages defenders aggressively. While he’s solid in pass protection, his aggression really surfaces in the run game, where he’ll take tacklers out of the equation entirely. Bolles uses his athletic gifts to finish blocks and frustrate defenders by bullying them all the way back to their sideline.

He’s also a dynamic force in screen passes and misdirections. He clears space well to engage linebackers at the next level, and he rarely whiffs on blocks where he’s tracking a moving target downfield.

His two-year LDS mission and subsequent time in junior college made him an older prospect with limited reps against elite competition. He played only one season against FBS opponents but will be 25 when the 2017 season begins. He’ll face the same learning curve as a 22-year-old prospect, but he will have three fewer years of peak performance as a pro.

He’s also undersized as a tackle. Bolles weighs less than 300 pounds, and though he’s got room to bulk up, he doesn’t have ideal arm length to tangle with defensive ends, either. His pass blocking wasn’t elite in his sole season with Utah — he allowed three sacks and 16 QB hurries for the year — though that can be chalked up to the learning curve of going from junior college to the Pac-12. He’s still got a lot of growing to do, and while his limited resume suggests he’ll be fine, his status as an older rookie does raise questions about how well he’ll be able to adjust.