They went one by one at the Broncos captains’ dinner on Monday, veterans of this league who have climbed the mountaintop and know the footing the trek requires. Wil Lutz. Talanoa Hufanga. D.J. Jones. Each gave their speech. Each bared their hearts.
Last of all came Bo Nix, the 25-year-old anointed one who’s never met anyone who expects more of him than he expects of himself.
He spoke and set a bar for a group of men who respected him enough to not only listen to his words but feel them. John Franklin-Myers and Marvin Mims Jr. recounted his words separately in the days to come.
“We have this team that’s been put together. Each one of us are hand-picked,” Franklin-Myers recalled Nix saying. “But our goal should be to go out there and win every game.”
There are three kinds of teams in this league, Nix continued, as Mims remembered. The team that wants to go out and simply compete. The team that wants to go out and win. And the team that wants to go out and dominate.
These Broncos, Nix emphasized, needed to be the team that dominates.
“Shoot, something like that is powerful from a quarterback, a younger guy,” Franklin-Myers said Friday. “And you see that type of fire from him, and it kinda gets you going.”
Nix did not dominate in Sunday afternoon’s win over Tennessee, his first start since a rookie campaign that cratered and then skyrocketed. Far from it. He threw a bad cross-body interception in the first quarter on a ball that sailed to Courtland Sutton. He threw a worse one in the third quarter on a ball to a double-covered Troy Franklin that had no business even being thrown. He ran directly into a strip-sack in the second quarter for the first lost fumble he’s had since he played at Auburn. He finished 25-of-40 passing for 176 yards, a touchdown, and a passer rating of 60, the third-worst game of his NFL career.
And still, new safety Hufanga came strolling to a podium postgame wearing a beaming smile and a grey T-shirt that had a giant decal of Nix.
“I got a lot of confidence,” Hufanga said. “I wouldn’t be wearing this shirt if I didn’t have confidence in my guy. He’s a Christian man that just goes out there and leads us.
“So, regardless of what kind of day he has, I know I got his back, and he got mine.”
It was a “really ugly game,” as Mims put it. And perhaps the ugliest Broncos performance of all Sunday came from Nix. He made a few plays early as the pocket collapsed and fired a late-first-half seed to Sutton for a touchdown. He also could’ve easily thrown two more picks.
The body language was bad. Nix clapped at Tyler Badie after the back didn’t turn around for one third-down ball in the first half, and slouched after a missed connection with Lucas Krull on another third down. He yelled at nobody in particular as he went to the bench after his second pick.
The barks at teammates, though, weren’t anything “too out there,” as Mims put it. At the captains’ dinner and throughout 2024, Nix earned the credibility in his locker room to struggle. To be frustrated. To still be supported through it. And Mims knew most of Nix’s frustration was with himself.
“At the end of the day, like, we gotta be better for him, too,” Mims said. “And just kinda bailing him out sometimes. He has a lot on his plate.”
Indeed, Denver’s receivers didn’t separate deep consistently against Tennessee’s secondary, and their offensive line collapsed too easily.
But Nix still took a few too many reckless shots in an effort to linger in the pocket — after a little “first-read” jab this week from the Titans’ Jeffrey Simmons — and chided himself for it postgame. The Broncos’ defense swooped to the rescue Sunday, but Nix can’t afford to put them in “bad spots,” he affirmed.
Through all this, the Broncos still won, as Payton noted when asked to evaluate Nix. It was a “gutsy performance,” Payton said.
The head coach also scoffed at any notion of evaluating year-over-year growth for Nix.
“We’re not going to have a Growth Meter each week in Year Two, all right?” Payton retorted. “He’s in his second year. I love the player, all right. I get a chance to see him every day, all right. He can be a huge reason why we win games. And so, we’re not going to have that weekly meter.”
It was an external message that Nix is beyond any sort of young-quarterback evaluation, and beyond any sort of light-a-spark public prodding. That, Payton knows, isn’t needed.
Nix has an acute fear of letting people down, he’s said himself, and has thus far earned moments of holding teammates accountable by holding himself accountable.
And he turned his own message from Monday’s dinner inward at the podium Sunday.
“It’s the first game of the season,” Nix said. “You’re going to have some hiccups, but it starts with me. I have to do a much better job, play better.
“I feel like I’m always going to say that. And then they’ll follow.”
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Originally Published:
Luca Evans
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