Bo Nix belongs to the past. And that is why the Broncos have such a bright future.
Feel cheated you never saw John Elway execute a two-minute drive? Or Peyton Manning carve up a defense with a surgeon’s precision?
All those are yesterday’s roses. It is time to give Nix his flowers. He is doing it right before your eyes.
Qualifying standards are no longer measuring Nix. He is not playing well for his second season. He is playing well for any season.
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There are still things that absolutely remind us of his inexperience. But they don’t matter. Not anymore. Not this season, because the Broncos have reached the point of no looking back.
Against the best opponent they have faced, the Broncos knocked out the Packers, 34-26, on Sunday to clinch a second-consecutive playoff berth, while moving closer to securing the AFC’s top seed with a one-game lead over the Patriots.
If the road to the postseason goes through Denver, then it ends in Santa Clara for the Broncos. It is that simple.
No team is coming to Empower Field at Mile High with this altitude and with these fans and walking away with a win. For so long, the Broncos’ play suggested they would be an easy mark in the postseason, a notion reinforced by their winning their last five games by a combined 17 points.
Nobody is suggesting that anymore. Not now. Not after Dre Greenlaw screamed in the Packers’ face before the game and Nix punched them in the throat during it.
The Broncos will host Jacksonville next week, then face the Chiefs on Christmas without Patrick Mahomes, and finish with the Chargers. They can win out. Writing the sentence seems blasphemous since not even the 1998 powerhouse won 15 regular-season games.
If nothing else, the Broncos forced critics to shut up. By Nix playing the way he did, the Broncos squelched doubts. He was the reason they were so vulnerable, right? He sat in the cockpit of a mediocre offense that required finishes featuring everything but Al Michaels screaming, “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”
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Say that now with a straight face. The Texans are the best defense Nix has encountered, but the Packers are the most balanced. And all Nix did was complete 23 of 34 passes for 302 yards and four touchdowns.
“He had a day, didn’t he?” mused receiver Courtland Sutton, who caught one of Nix’s touchdowns.
Green Bay’s Jordan Love looked like a more talented quarterback, especially when he collected 215 yards in the first half. But Nix was more efficient, more versatile, and once again closed like Mariano Rivera.
A fourth-and-2 from the 41-yard line with 9:08 remaining provided a snapshot of his performance.
Sean Payton called a timeout. The Broncos clung to a 27-26 lead.
Earlier in the season, they punt, and let the defense go to work. No questions. No discussion. There was no debate this time, either. It was time to go for the bold, a choice unthinkable two months ago when the Broncos’ offense looked more awkward than a giraffe on ice skates.
Payton dialed up a sideline strike to Sutton, which was eerily similar to the third-down play that failed. Forget what a coach says. You can tell how much he believes in a quarterback by the way he calls the game.
In the biggest moment, Payton put the ball in Nix’s hands. And he lofted it into Sutton’s paws for a 26-yard gain. Four plays later, the Broncos scored. All the theories that Love would outplay Nix, that the kid would wilt in the spotlight were drown out by the full-throat cheers of 75,555 fans.
“Bo has every single trait imaginable,” explained tight end Adam Trautman. “He’s super smart, super mobile; a huge part of his game that I don’t think a lot of people understand. You saw it all kind of come into fruition today.”
Nix was in his bag.
His dart to Lil’Jordan Humphrey for a score was the equivalent of a Paul Skenes’ fastball on the black. His pass to a leaping Troy Franklin was such a tight spiral you could have hung laundry on it. And the corner rainbow to a diving Sutton came with a velvet touch.
Earlier in the week, Nix was asked about nobody believing in the Broncos. He said his mother thought Denver would win. He delivered the answer tongue in cheek. He delivered passes on Sunday with a fist into the chest.
“After that first score he had this swagger about him that was really, really cool to see,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said. “It’s been building the last few weeks and he was on fire. He is feeding off us as much as we are feeding off him. You look into his eyes and he’s saying, ‘Give me the ball.’^”
Faced with scrutiny and pointed criticism after a vomit-on-sweater performance against the Raiders last month, Nix regained his footing, finding traction as coach Payton started calling plays for who Bo is, not who he wants him to be.
The results are eye-opening over the past four games: 69.4 completion percentage on 154 passes with five touchdowns and one interception.
Against the Packers, Nix was supposed to get exposed. But it was Pat Surtain II’s interception of Love that flipped the script, left the Broncos playing downhill.
Denver looked nothing like a team that has trailed in all but one victory this season.
“We continue to prove over and over that our defense is going to play stout when need to and and our offense, we deliver when we have to,” Nix said. “As a team I think we are playing as good as we can play right now.”
The Broncos were better offensively, outgaining the Packers 391-362. They pressured with more purpose, posting three sacks to the Packers’ goose egg.
And the red-faced zone became a rumor. The Broncos went 4-for-4 on touchdowns inside the 20-yard line, compared to 1-for-4 for the Packers. Watching Brandon McManus kick field goals brought back memories of why Denver used to lose with regularity before Payton arrived.
The difference? The Broncos did not have Nix. A quarterback they trust. We no longer have to squint our eyes and think of Elway was like or what Manning could do. Those are heirlooms of the mind.
This was always Nix’s team. Sunday showed, it’s his time.
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