After a strong season that saw several game-changing plays and late-game successes, Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix watched the team’s playoff journey come to an end from a suite at Empower Field at Mile High. Nix was sidelined due to ankle surgery as the Broncos played in the AFC Championship Game.
Head Coach Sean Payton addressed how challenging it must have been for Nix to be unable to play. “I’m sure there’s disappointment for him to have to watch,” Payton said Tuesday. “… I think it’s difficult. … I think it’s difficult to get as far as he brought us — and then maybe to see also one of his contemporaries [in Drake Maye], someone in his draft class, that he would’ve loved to [have] competed against [to] advance. It can be a tough game.”
Payton explained that doctors had determined Nix’s ankle injury would require surgery sooner or later. As Nix works through his recovery, teammates believe this setback could motivate him further.
“I can only imagine what this is going to do to fuel him,” inside linebacker Alex Singleton said Monday.
The Broncos’ confidence in their quarterback comes from the impact he’s made during his first two seasons with the team. In 2025, Denver matched its franchise record for regular-season wins, secured its first division title in ten years, and earned the top seed in the AFC. Nix led all NFL quarterbacks in game-winning drives that year and recorded six fourth-quarter comebacks including postseason games.
In a Divisional Round matchup against Buffalo’s highly ranked passing defense, Nix threw three touchdowns and completed a go-ahead pass to Marvin Mims Jr. late in regulation.
Safety Talanoa Hufanga commented on Nix’s performance: “He’s special,” Hufanga said Monday. “There’s a reason why I wore a shirt with him on it. I want him to feel the confidence that I have in him. [He’s] a dude that just goes out there and, regardless of the situation — you guys all saw it all year — it’s these fourth quarters and this dude pulls this game out, and you’re just like, ‘How does he do it?'”
Nix has joined Peyton Manning and Justin Herbert as one of only three players in NFL history with at least 3,500 passing yards and 25 passing touchdowns in each of their first two seasons. He is also just the third Broncos quarterback with three passing touchdowns in a playoff game; only Dan Marino and Patrick Mahomes have more games with four or more touchdown passes over their first two seasons.
General Manager George Paton highlighted Nix’s winning record: “I just think you evaluate a quarterback by how much he wins,” Paton said Tuesday. “And there’s been no quarterback in his first two years who’s won more than Bo. We can just start there.”
Nix’s 24 regular-season wins are tied for most ever by an NFL player through two seasons, while his win total for 2025 set a new single-season mark for any Broncos quarterback.
Paton noted that many of those victories came from late-game performances by Nix: “It got to the point where we’re behind and Bo had the ball, and we’re like, ‘OK, we’re going to win this,'” Paton said. “You can look at all the traits for quarterbacks: their arm strength, their accuracy, all that.… He has that ‘It’ factor. I don’t think you can teach that. Either you have it or you don’t — and he has it… We’ve seen that… Does he have areas to improve? Yes… But if you have a quarterback that has that ‘It’ factor that’s best in the big moments, that’s pretty big.”
As preparations begin for next season while Nix continues rehabilitation from injury, Singleton emphasized confidence moving forward: “That’s the guy you want at the helm,” Singleton said. “There’s teams around the league that are fighting to find a guy to play that position, and we’ve found one… having a guy who can do that week in and week out… he’s shown that he’s able to do that.”
