When the 2026 NFL Season officially begins, all eyes are going to be on quarterback Bo Nix and if he'll be able to take that next step into stardom. Depending on who you ask, he may already be there, but it's pretty obvious that there is another unofficial 'level' of the passing offense that he has yet to hit.
To be fair, though, Nix dealt with a lot of drops in 2025. According to Pro Football Reference, the then second-year quarterback saw his playmakers drop 43 passes in the 2025 season. Nix averaged 10.1 yards per completion last year, so you do the math.
And if Denver thought the wide receiver and tight end rooms were solid enough, for example, they would not have gone out and brought in all of Jaylen Waddle, Justin Joly, and Dallen Bentley. The front office's offseason moves indicate that the offense needed major help, and even though Sean Payton probably didn't want Nix to lead the NFL in this category in 2025, the Broncos should hope he does in 2026.
Denver Broncos QB Bo Nix should again lead the NFL in passing attempts in 2026
Honestly, this would be an ideal scenario. Across the first 10 weeks of the season, the Broncos were getting very efficient returns from J.K. Dobbins, their starting running back. He played those first 10 games of the season until suffering a season-ending foot injury.
The Broncos ran the ball well and won eight of those 10 games. During that time, Nix averaged 35 passing attempts per game. Denver then had to go without Dobbins for the final seven games of the regular season. During those seven games, Nix averaged 37.4 passing attempts per game, which does not seem like a lot, but does add up.
Denver simply threw the ball more once Dobbins was out of the lineup, and a primary reason for this was because the team simply was not getting efficient returns from rookie RJ Harvey, who stepped into the lineup as the primary running back.
Despite not hitting 4,000 yards, Nix led the NFL in passing attempts with 612, which was up from 567 as a rookie. Payton surely didn't plan for this to happen, as Dobbins' injury did come out of nowhere, but Nix really began to heat up as the season went along, and I am not sure there was ever a point during the season where Nix looked overwhelmed with such a large role on offense.
The Broncos won 14 games for a reason, and while the passing statistics did not jump off the page, Nix was doing all he could. However, with Waddle now in the picture, and some extra reinforcements at tight end and running back now being in place, perhaps Nix should hope to lead the league in passing attempts for the second year in a row.
The reasoning feels rather simple - Waddle is supposed to turn into the missing piece at wide receiver. His skill set is quite perfect atop the depth chart next to Courtland Sutton, and after long last, Davis Webb is now calling the plays.
I believe many of us are hoping for an offense where the play calls themselves are shorter, allowing the offense to break the huddle with time to spare. We're also likely hoping that Waddle fits into the de-facto WR1 role he was traded to be in, and perhaps also hoping for more up-tempo work as well.
I guess we could use the phrase 'laser show' to describe how many of us would want the offense to look, and a high-flying passing attack is really something that we have not yet seen in the Nix era, but we've seen everything else, right?
Nix led the NFL in passing attempts in 2025 because he had to, but perhaps he needs to lead the NFL in passing attempts in 2026 because it's what the offense is finally excelling at.
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