Bo Nix has now started in 20 regular season games as Denver’s quarterback. After two tough losses, some fans have cooled on the young quarterback and a minority has lost hope that he’ll be the franchise quarterback we’ve needed. But how do his stats add up compared to other Broncos quarterbacks who started their careers in Denver and hit the 20 game milestone?
For fairness, we won’t include quarterbacks like Craig Morten, Jake Plummer or Peyton Manning - who came from other teams with plenty of experience before their first 20 games in a Broncos uniform. Instead, we’ll compare Nix to John Elway, Brian Griese, Jay Cutler and Drew Lock. Tim Tebow almost made the cut, but only played 18 games for Denver.
The five categories we’ll look at will be overall win-loss record, passer rating, passing yards, touchdowns and interceptions. This is only focusing on the regular season and doesn't include any playoff games. The following results may shock you.
Comparing Bo Nix first 20 games to past Broncos quarterbacks
Win-loss record
- John Elway: 13-7
- Bo Nix: 11-9
- Drew Lock & Brian Griese: 9-11
- Jay Cutler: 8-12
The one metric that Elway wins, as he otherwise struggled as a rookie, is that he only played in ten games before going 9-1 in the first ten of his sophomore season. But Bo rises above the others. Context matters in each situation, as the surrounding team contributes the most to this particular statistic. For what it’s worth, only Elway and Nix had winning records after 20.
Passer rating
- Bo Nix: 91.9
- Jay Cutler: 87.0
- Brian Griese: 83.2
- Drew Lock: 77.4
- John Elways: 60.7
Bo shines here. Passer rating can be a misleading statistic, and in the modern day, many fans prefer the QBR as a superior measurement of a quarterback’s success. The next few categories are the major contributing factors that will explain why he has the highest passer rating.
Passing yards
- Brian Griese: 4,418 yards
- Bo Nix: 4,310 yards
- Jay Cutler: 4,252 yards
- Drew Lock: 4,092 yards
- John Elway: 2,864 yards
Another second-place finish for Nix, falling about a hundred yards short of Griese. Considering Griese inherited Elway’s arsenal of back-to-back Super Bowl-winning weapons, it’s impressive that Bo came close to his numbers. Griese was also playing from behind more often, and some of his number is inflated by garbage-time yards.
Passing touchdowns
- Bo Nix: 34 TD
- Jay Cutler: 27 TD
- Brian Griese: 25 TD
- Drew Lock: 23 TD
- John Elway: 13 TD
Bo tops Cutler here by seven touchdowns. Cutler was a gun slinger, and much of his career on the Broncos was marked by a pass-happy offense without much help from the running game. This metric is impressive, as he isn’t only at the top but also clears the others by a significant margin. Even crazier when you consider he only threw one touchdown in the first four games, and not until the fourth.
Least interceptions
- Bo Nix: 15 INT
- Brian Griese: 16 INT
- Jay Cutler: 19 INT
- Drew Lock: 20 INT
- John Elway: 22 INT
A narrow first-place victory for Bo. This metric sings when considering he also threw the most touchdowns and almost the most yards. The offense was on his shoulders and his backfield wasn’t giving him much help. Bo took care of the ball and showed early maturity in his decision-making. With a better than 2:1 TD-to-INT ratio, Nix is executing with elite efficiency.
Final verdict
Bo finishes 2nd in two categories and 1st in the other three. Again, there’s a lot of context that makes each of these situations entirely unique for these young quarterbacks. Regardless, these cold hard stats seem to indicate that Nix is off to the best start of any of our home-grown quarterbacks in the history of the franchise.