DENVER — The Bo Nix Era officially began Sunday.
Yes, the ledger shows that he was the Week 1 starter, becoming the first rookie quarterback to open a season under center for the Denver Broncos since the exalted John Elway back in 1983. But for every young passer who successfully finds his footing in the NFL, there is always a moment at which potential becomes performance, hope becomes tangible outcome and the aspirations of the entire franchise find security in his hands.
And that brings us to Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.
Nursing a 2-game losing streak and coming off of a loss that was perhaps the most excruciating regular-season defeat in over a decade, Bo Nix strolled onto the field with the confidence of a veteran who knew that last week’s pain was contained, and this week would be different.
And his teammates followed his lead — all the way to a 38-6, three-phase romp.
“Bo is not your average rookie, I would say,” safety P.J. Locke said. “And you can just tell, like, his confidence is growing, his leadership is growing, and it’s rubbing off on a lot of people, man. And he’s going out there and executing and getting that offense going, and, man, it’s just a — It’s a fun sight to see, and I think everybody feeds off of it, man.”
As Locke noted, when Nix plays well and stakes the Broncos to a lead, defensive coordinator Vance Joseph can attack. So Nix played a role in the defense’s finest performance of the season, one in which it held the potent Falcons to a pair of field goals.
“When your offense is going … it’s a totally different ball game,” Locke said., “VJ calls the game different. You know, he’s able to rush the passer, you know. You know how VJ did, man, when he’s ready to rush the passer, he going to go crazy with it.”
Meanwhile, Nix remained unruffled. Atlanta starter Kirk Cousins went down three times. Nix, just once when Mike McGlinchey was pushed into his footpath by Atlanta’s Matthew Judon.
Aside from that hiccup, Nix had time to operate and climb the pocket. And he never looked finer.
BO NIX HAD A DAY LIKE NO OTHER ROOKIE QB, BUT IT WASN’T IN A VACUUM
The degree to which Bo Nix popped off, yes, that’s an outlier. He’s not likely to have another contest this season in which he throws four touchdown passes, racks up 300 yards, completes 80 percent of his attempts and doesn’t throw an interception. It had never happened for a rookie quarterback before.
But it wasn’t just a one-off occurrence against a foe that found itself on the ropes early. This had actually been building since Week 3.
Since that point, Nix had succeeded in learning how not to lose. He avoided mistakes at a clip better than almost any rookie quarterback in NFL history over an 8-game stretch. Of his 6 interceptions so far this season, 4 came in Weeks 1 and 2. And the skittishness evident during those first two games gradually faded.
It wasn’t that there weren’t still some shaky junctures — there was the pass down the left flank in New Orleans that landed virtually equidistant between Lucas Krull and Troy Franklin — but these moments became rarer as the weeks passed.
Nix’s metrics improved; heading into Sunday night, Nix ranked 12th in EPA/play and 10th in CPOE among 34 quarterbacks with at least 100 plays from Week 6 onward. There were signs of his growth in the two-minute offense; heading into Sunday, the Broncos had scored on drives that began in the final four minutes of the first half in five of their first 10 games.
All the signs of progress were there. Only the ignorant overlooked them. And this said nothing of the intangibles that go into leadership, aspects that were evident to teammates all along.
“He’s probably the most mature rookie I’ve ever been around,” edge rusher Jonathon Cooper said. “And just the way that he took control of the offense and just been a leader for this team, everything that he’s doing isn’t a surprise to me.”
And as left guard Quinn Meinerz noted, Nix has been “the same person” since he arrived.
“When I first saw him in training camp, like beginning of OTAs and stuff, I saw a cool, calm, collected, confident, rookie quarterback,” Meinerz said.
“I think we all kind of said at the beginning, like, it was kind of like, wow, this guy’s got some swag to him and he’s got some confidence, and he’s continued to develop and attack every day and get better, just like all of us are. And so it’s great to have him leading us back there.”
But it didn’t come together in an instant. Like a storm churning over warm waters, Nix needed some time to build strength. Sunday, he unleashed a hurricane-force destruction on a battered Atlanta defense ill-equipped to counter the precision with which he struck in finding an array of pass-catching targets all over the field.
Sunday, there wasn’t a throw that Nix couldn’t make. A 33-yard strike to Devaughn Vele down the middle late in the second quarter was the kind of pass that seemed to be beyond his reach in the early weeks of the season.
But against Atlanta, Nix threaded a needle that jump-started what would become a 10-play, 70-yard sprint to a 12-yard Marvin Mims Jr. touchdown reception that squelched any opportunity the Falcons had of building momentum before halftime. Nix went 6-of-7 for 75 yards on that drive, overcoming a 12-yard loss on a goal-to-go sack.
That became the Broncos’ sixth score in 11 games this season on a drive that commenced with fewer than four minutes left in the first half. Nix is 30-of-48 for 328 yards on these series.
On the fleeting occasions when the Falcons showed life, Nix responded by stepping on them. Once again, Denver was stellar on third downs, going 6-of-10 when Nix was on the field. Nix posted a 143.5 passer rating on third downs, going 8-for-9 for 86 yards and a touchdown.
SO WHAT’S NEXT? ROOKIE OF THE YEAR?
“Rookie of the Year? … damn right … damn right,” P.J. Locke said. “If it’s not, we gotta go talk to somebody.”
Then, the safety reined himself in.
“Let me scale back. We still got a whole bunch of games, so I don’t want to mess up nothing,” Locke said, “So, keep taking it week by week, but I hope so.”
It doesn’t seem so crazy now. Washington’s Jayden Daniels is banged up and has leveled off. Meanwhile, Nix is ascendant, spreading the ball around to his targets, making the Broncos offense greater than the sum of its parts.
This brought a sense of giddiness to a locker room that was somber just a week earlier. Because after a day like this, one in which Nix elevated the entire operation, all things seemed possible.
With this, where’s the ceiling for the team”
“I don’t really think [there] is one, especially not with him behind the center,” Williams said. “I haven’t seen a quarterback, a rookie quarterback like him in a long time.
“And just the way he keep composure, the way he treat people and just the way he play on the field, I mean, he the full package.”
More importantly, he’s the answer to the fondest hopes of Broncos Country, jaded and exhausted from the quarterback questions that yielded no clear answers despite repeated attempts through various methods to find one.
Now, the Broncos have their answer. For the first time since Peyton Manning, they have The Man.
And his name is Bo Nix.
