Denver Broncos rookie quarterback Bo Nix might have just entered the best situation ever for a rookie passer. Is he destined to succeed? When you think about it, this might be true. When you look at the fit within the offense and who Bo Nix has around him, find me a better situation for a rookie passer.
Typically, rookie QBs come into some pretty tough situations. There's an obvious reason why a team would need to use a high draft pick on a rookie passer, and it's because, well, they stunk the previous year. You cannot tell me guys like Joe Burrow, Kyler Murray, or Trevor Lawrence stepped into better situations than Bo Nix has with the Denver Broncos.
Their respective teams were dumpster fires in their rookie seasons. For the Denver Broncos, it might be distinctly different. Firstly, they have a Hall of Fame offensive mind in Sean Payton running the show. His success on offense in the NFL is objectively amazing, and it's won over 60% of his games as a head coach.
There might not be five better coaches in the NFL right now who are better at their jobs than Sean Payton. Secondly, the fit with Bo Nix in the Broncos offense is seamless. Everywhere you look, you can find former NFL people talking glowingly about how well Bo Nix fits into the offense that Payton likes to run.
Here's respected football mind Joel Klatt talking about the fit:
"“He fits Sean Payton. When I say fits, let me just explain that briefly,” Klatt said. “Sean Payton’s offense relies on, generally speaking and kind of for the most part in the passing game, what I would call scat protection. When I say scat protection, that means five offensive lineman protecting and nobody check-releasing. So you have all five potential pass-catchers out immediately. They’ve got no responsibility in the pass protection and just the five up front protecting. They run that quite often. Well, Oregon ran that quite often.”Joel Klatt / on3.com
“Now why do you like that? Okay, why would that be your M.O., wouldn’t you want to protect the quarterback? Well, because you protect the quarterback through the quarterback’s intelligence and his ability to get the ball out quickly as a point guard,” noted Klatt. “It’s actually a better way to protect the quarterback sometimes than holding the sixth guy in protection, the seventh guy in protection, or even max-protecting, sitting in there with eight and trying to block everybody. Just let the quarterback protect himself – protect himself with his mind first and then his feet and his accuracy. Nix does that really well. Oregon does that really well.”"
Not only is the fit amazing between the coaching staff an offense, but the personnel Nix gets to play with is also quite adequate. The OL is strong, and it was one of the better units in the NFL in 2023. The play-making situation also seems strong. The Broncos drafted Bo Nix's former teammate at Oregon, Troy Franklin.
They also already had Courtland Sutton, Tim Patrick, Marvin Mims Jr, Josh Reynolds, and a plethora of capable RBs in Javonte Williams, Samaje Perine, Jaleel McLaughlin, and two encouraging rookies in Blake Watson and Audric Estime. Folks, it's hard to envision there being another situation in NFL history where a rookie QB had a better team and coaching staff around him than Bo Nix.