The Broncos have locked up another key member of one of the best-performing offensive lines in football.
On Tuesday night, Denver agreed to a four-year extension with center Luke Wattenberg, sources confirmed to The Denver Post. It’s a four-year, $48 million extension for Wattenberg, a source confirmed, with $27 million guaranteed.
The deal ties Wattenberg with the New Orleans Saints’ Erik McCoy as the fifth-highest-paid center in the NFL, with an average value of $12 million yearly.
The move comes just a day after head coach Sean Payton told reporters that he and general manager George Paton had spent time before last week’s bye discussing extensions and initiating conversations with a handful of players.
“The key is not affecting the mojo or how your team’s doing,” Payton said. “I’m always sensitive to that, especially when you’re playing well, because sometimes those can be difficult discussions.”
The Broncos clearly moved quick with Wattenberg, whose rookie deal was set to expire after the 2025 season. The crop of available 2026 free-agent centers was fairly slim, and Wattenberg would’ve likely commanded a hefty sum on the open market. Still, Wattenberg’s extension — if signed as a free agent in the offseason — would’ve made him the third-highest-paid center in 2025 free agency, behind the Bears’ Drew Dalman and the Jaguars’ Patrick Mekari.
The 28-year-old Wattenberg has become an integral part of a Broncos offensive front that currently ranks fourth in the NFL in pass-block win rate and ninth in run-block win rate, according to ESPN. Wattenberg won the starting job prior to the 2024 season in his third year in the league, authoring a strong year in pass protection in front of rookie quarterback Bo Nix.
“I think you’re going to see an ascension,” Payton said of Wattenberg during minicamp. “He’s exceptionally smart. I like his frame. He loves football. So I think that first year full-time starting is going to benefit him greatly.”
Wattenberg has started all 11 games in 2025, surrendering 10 pressures and committing eight penalties. The latter figure is second in the NFL among all centers, according to Pro Football Focus.
The deal continues a trend of Broncos leadership locking down its starting offensive line, as Denver has committed major money to the front in front of Nix. Denver inked All-Pro guard Quinn Meinerz to a four-year, $80 million deal in 2024’s offseason, and followed with an $82 million extension for stalwart left tackle Garett Bolles in December.
The Broncos drafted Wattenberg in the fifth round in 2022, after the center played five years at Washington.
Eventually, they stopped talking about points. Bo Nix, and the rest of the Broncos’ offense around him made clear: they needed to go get six.
They had punted on six straight possessions in Philadelphia. Nix was playing some of his worst football in a topsy-turvy start. He “wasn’t happy,” as he put it postgame.
And then a shining version of Nix unfurled before the hostile Philly crowd, the best version of the second-year quarterback shooting the Eagles down in the fourth quarter in one of the most important performances of his young career.
“We handled it how we handled it,” Nix said after the Broncos’ 21-17 win, “and we went out and won the game.”
Welcome back to The Denver Post’s Bo Nix Index, reviewing every drop-back from Nix’s performance the previous week. For Week 5, let’s focus specifically on the factors that contributed to the quarterback’s star-making final frame: 9-of-10 passing, 127 yards, a touchdown. Plenty of reps both explained Nix’s erratic play early and his steadiness down the stretch. Here are four key themes.
1. Nix favors tempo. It worked against Eagles
Last week, head coach Sean Payton noted that Nix “likes tempo” to start a game — a kind of fast-paced offense that incorporates no-huddle and motion to wear defenses down. Within that, too, Payton hinted his staff has adapted to reduce verbiage in play calls so Nix can get to the line quicker.
“He’ll have input like, ‘Hey, this is a play I really like, can we get that in?’” Lombardi said of Nix. “And nine times out of 10, we do it.”
Denver went straight to tempo in their first drive against the Eagles. Nix clapped his hands in an early no-huddle third-down look, smoothly one-handing a high snap, pivoting, and firing a quick comebacker to Courtland Sutton for a first down. The Broncos went no-huddle three times across that first drive, and Nix moved them into Philadelphia territory before a sack by Cooper DeJean stalled the drive.
After veering away from tempo in the third quarter, Nix got rolling in Denver’s early fourth-quarter drive with some faster looks. He hit Sutton again on a quick play-action back-shoulder ball for a first down to push the Broncos into Eagles territory. His eventual game-tying touchdown pass came off tempo, as Nix cycled through his reads while rolling out and found Evan Engram for a score.
Nix has a 108.8 quarterback rating this season on play-action passes, and a 101.5 QB rating when taking less than 2.5 seconds to throw, according to Next Gen Stats. Generally, he appears to make quicker decisions when Payton speeds up opposing defenses.
As has been pointed out in previous Bo Nix Indexes, the QB is better when he actually sets his feet to throw — and more importantly, doesn’t drift. But Nix also has a particular mechanical quirk at the opposite end of the spectrum. At times, on quick-hits, he’ll take a snap and fire with only a tiny tap of his front foot, generating little lower-body momentum.
Sometimes, it works out fine — like a second-quarter strike to Trent Sherfield, when Nix fired quickly to expose an opening in the middle of the Eagles’ zone. But it can also backfire.
On a late Broncos third-quarter drive that stalled out, Nix had receiver Marvin Mims Jr. open on a short flare on third-and-2. He turned his body in Mims’ direction toward the right sideline. But instead of shuffling his feet again to point parallel at Mims, Nix planted near-horizontally and fired a sidearm throw. The ball sailed and tipped off an outstretched Mims’ fingertips for an ugly incompletion.
Nix’s feet went topsy-turvy at times throughout the fourth quarter, as he’s wont to do. But each of his most visible strikes — a 10-yard hit to Troy Franklin, an 18-yard crosser to Engram, a pivotal 34-yard connection with Sutton — came with drive off his back foot. He switched off statue mode, and the Broncos were better for it.
3. Nix deciphered and felt out pressure much more quickly in fourth quarter
Broncos third-string running back Tyler Badie got more snaps on Sunday than rookie RJ Harvey, in large part because Denver trusts him more in pass protection (and two-minute situations). Badie absolutely wiped out Eagles inside linebacker Zack Baun on an early third-down ILB blitz.
Tyler Badie got a ton of work yesterday on third-down/two-min situations for #Broncos. This is why Sean Payton trusts him in pass pro.
Badie wipes out Zach Baun one-on-one on 3rd-and-6 here, Bo Nix hits Courtland Sutton for a first pic.twitter.com/bat8cIRaVA
That play knocked the Broncos out of field-goal range and an early opportunity to put points on the board. But it wasn’t all on Harvey. Nix had a few puzzling moments where he got himself into trouble against the Eagles by not feeling pressure off the edge.
Harvey wasn’t even blocking DeJean on Nix’s blind side, and the quarterback had ample room to step up or even escape the pocket on that third down. This played out again in the second quarter, when Azeez Ojulari got an angle on Broncos left tackle Garett Bolles and hit Nix for an incompletion when he didn’t step up.
In the fourth quarter, though, Nix dissected every single look Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio threw at him. On that crucial 34-yard strike to Sutton, he motioned Badie over to pick up Philadelphia outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith and was rewarded with a clean pocket. And on second-and-14 in Eagles territory with the clock under three minutes, he felt Philadelphia inside linebacker Jihaad Campbell breathing down his neck and hit Sutton for a 12-yard pickup. Nix’s blitz recognition was vital Sunday.
4. Sutton Over Everything isn’t always smartest approach
Death, taxes and Sutton on third downs. Nix rarely looks for anyone other than his No. 1 wideout in clutch situations. Their connection is stronger than ever. Sometimes to the detriment of Denver’s offense.
At the end of the third quarter, the Broncos set up for a run-pass option look, with receivers bunched on the left side of the formation and J.K. Dobbins angling on a handoff to the right. Nix yanked the ball back from Dobbins and whipped a short 6-yard completion to Sutton. But Dobbins had just two Eagles defenders in front of him, with both center Luke Wattenberg and guard Quinn Meinerz pulling free to the right side to block, and 40 yards of green grass.
Dobbins, seeing the missed opportunity, pointed at the hole he could’ve hit and threw his head back in dismay.
Nix, of course, rode Sutton heavily in the fourth quarter, with four completions for 76 yards. But he also expanded beyond tunnel vision. On that tying touchdown to Engram, Sutton and Franklin were both blanketed crossing across the field. So Nix readjusted and hit Engram across his body for a catch-and-run score. There is a world beyond the Court, after all.
Denver Post reporters Parker Gabriel and Ryan McFadden cover key storylines as the Broncos get ready to start 2024 training camp under Sean Payton, including Quinn Meinerz’s massive contract extension, whether Pat Surtain II might be next and how the three-man QB race between Bo Nix, Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson sets up in the coming weeks. All that and more on the latest edition of the 1st & Orange Podcast.
Quinn Meinerz is going to be able to buy all the telescopes he wants.
The ascending offensive lineman and the Broncos agreed to a massive four-year contract extension worth up to $80 million and including $45 million in guarantees, multiple sources confirmed to The Denver Post on Tuesday evening.
Meinerz, a third-round draft pick in 2021, was entering the final year of his rookie contract and now will be with Denver for the foreseeable future. The former University of Wisconsin-Whitewater standout capitalized on a booming market for interior offensive linemen and the Broncos secured a player whom they consider to be a cornerstone talent.
Meinerz was an internet sensation coming out of college because his COVID-era workouts included moving logs at his uncle’s fishing camp. As he’s settled into the NFL, he’s become an avid collector of “chill synth” vinyl, bowling balls and telescopes. He is also a dominating football player who took a big step in 2023 and looks set to be one of the NFL’s best interior linemen for years to come.
Meinerz told The Post last fall that he felt as though he was in the midst of something approaching a breakout. Not only that, but he had become comfortable stating a simple aspiration.
