Broncos Country must have a ton of patience with rookie QB Bo Nix

The Denver Broncos will be starting rookie quarterback Bo Nix heading into the 2024 NFL Season, and Broncos Country must have a great deal of patience with him. There really is no other way to put it. The team has cycled through a ton of quarterbacks ever since Peyton Manning retired following the 2015 NFL Season.

Neither former GM John Elway or current GM George Paton put much in place at the position, as a ton of veteran retreads were tried. They all failed, and it took Sean Payton to say enough was enough. There were six QBs who went in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft, and Nix was the sixth and final QB taken.

The 12th overall pick garnered mixed reviews at best, but Nix has done nothing but prove the doubters wrong thus far. He earned the starting job after blowing the competition out of the water during the preseason. Neither Jarrett Stidham nor Zach Wilson came close to playing as well as Nix did during the Broncos undefeated preseason.

And while it's gone quite well for the Broncos and Nix, he's still a rookie QB. And if you look at the recent history, rookie QBs definitely go through a ton of growing pains. My main concern is that Broncos Country has been scarred so much by the cycle of failed QBs that Bo Nix is not going to get the patience that he's earned to stabilize the position.

Now yes, if it's apparent that Bo Nix is just not going to be a viable NFL quarterback, that is a much different story. But he's going to throw interceptions. He'll make a ton of bad decisions and probably lose games for the Broncos from time to time. However, if the rookie QB is showing growth, he should earn some patience from Broncos Country.

At least one advantage with Bo Nix as a rookie is that with his 61 collegiate starts, his ceiling in year one may be quite high. The flip side of that is perhaps his ceiling beyond year one being lower. I have seen people compare Bo Nix to guys like Tony Romo, Derek Carr, and even Dak Prescott. Some have compared his game a bit to Kirk Cousins as well, even.

Nix is not a perfect comparison to the four passers I listed, but there are some similarities there. If Nix turns out to be about as good as Romo/Carr/Prescott/Cousins, perhaps somewhere in between, Denver may have their franchise QB. But this isn't something he'll turn into overnight, and it's imperative that the patience is there.