Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix came into the NFL with plenty of doubters, but Nix has started every Broncos game for two years now, and the Broncos have posted records of 10-7 and 14-3 in those seasons. That tied the NFL record for QB wins in any quarterback’s first two seasons, which was set by quarterback Russell Wilson in Seattle in 2012-2013, according to Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk.
There are a couple of asterisks attached to this record, though. The smaller one is that Wilson set his record in back-to-back, 16-game seasons, while Nix got his in a pair of 17-game seasons.
The larger one is about playoff wins. Wilson won four postseason games in his first two seasons, while Nix lost his playoff debut last year and can only win three more this season given that the Broncos have the bye this year.
As Smith notes, however, Nix has done an amazing job helping the Broncos move on from their disastrous season with Wilson at the helm in Denver. It’s easy to forget now, but the Broncos were looking at a serious rebuild given the cap hit they were taking by moving on from Wilson, but drafting Nix in 2024 has to go down right now as one of the most brilliant moves in franchise history.
There’s still a lot of work to be done, however. Payton saw something in Nix that very few other people saw when the head coach drafted him, but the rest of us have only seen that quarterback for brief stretches.
The remainder of the time Nix often looks like a game manager, a guy who can hold down the fort and do just enough to win as the Broncos ride their defense to victory.
The next few weeks will tell us a lot about where this storyline goes next. The way the AFC playoff brackets are structure, either Trevor Lawrence of the Jacksonville Jaguars or Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills will be coming to town, and both quarterbacks have already beaten Denver in big games.
Can Nix change that narrative in two weeks? He’ll need to put points on the board to do it, but the last look we got at how this might go Lawrence shredded the Denver defense and the Jaguars came out on top, 34-20. If Nix gives us the kind of second-half performance he submitted in that one, his storyline will almost certainly change for the worse.