One of the most consistent storylines advanced by national media members regarding new Denver Broncos rookie quarterback Bo Nix is that he was the sixth quarterback taken in the draft. Some have been eager to put Nix in the same sentence as Christian Ponder, who was taken 12th overall by the Minnesota Vikings in 2011, the same draft slot Nix occupied in 2024.
To his credit, Nix has seemingly shut out all of that noise. He had another good practice on Monday by most accounts, and continues to take steps toward winning the starting job to open the regular season.
Broncos’ coach Sean Payton finds himself in a unique position with Nix: he’s never had to develop a rookie quarterback from the ground up as the head coach before. But according to Albert Breer of SI.com, who visited Broncos camp last week, any questions about Nix and Payton being a forced marriage or Nix’s selection being a desperation move by the team are overblown.
“Payton told me that he had Nix and one other quarterback as the two in the top tier of the NFL draft,” Breer wrote.
That could be written off as a coach trying to manipulate the media with a storyline, and Payton has been one of the masters at this ever since first stepping into a head coaching role.
But looking at Payton’s quotes about Nix, they’re peppered with terms like “good pocket sense,” “farther along than most,” “extremely smart,” and “accurate.” He doesn’t sound like a coach who is stuck with a quarterback he didn’t want, and now has to make the most of a bad situation. He sounds like a coach who got his guy.
Only time will tell if the Sean Payton/Bo Nix marriage works out or not. But Nix continues to make his case that he deserves the starter’s job, and it certainly appears Coach Payton is excited to show up the naysayers with his young signal-caller. If he’s willing to stake his reputation and his career in Denver on Nix, it seems likely that he truly did have Nix ranked above other early-picked quarterbacks like J.J. McCarthy, Michael Penix Jr. or potentially even Jayden Daniels or Drake Maye.
