What led to the Denver Broncos falling in love with Bo Nix during the NFL Draft process? How did a private workout cement Sean Payton’s desire to have him as his next signal caller?

Denver Broncos private workout with Bo Nix led to draft history

Bo Nix is the fifth first-round quarterback in the Denver Broncos franchise history, which is uncharted waters for them in the modern era as Sean Payton hopes to get the team back into a position of winning games.

Jay Cutler is the only Broncos quarterback in franchise history who was drafted higher in the first round when Mike Shanahan went all-in to get him in 2006.

From the time Cutler was drafted to now with Nix, the evaluation process and the game itself have changed for quarterbacks.

Payton did a lot of groundwork on evaluating that 2006 quarterback class before ultimately landing Drew Brees. Now, the Broncos head coach lands a player who has drawn tons of comparisons to Brees from various NFL scouts and members of the media.

In the pre-draft process, the Broncos had the same approach with every quarterback they met with. They had Zoom meetings, attended pro days, and then held private workouts with quarterbacks and other players.

Nix separated himself from the other QB prospects relatively quickly with his performance and approach.

Payton and his staff would send over packets worth of install information the night before their workout. In the morning, they’d go over the install material in the classroom to see what the prospects retained in such a short amount of time, something Nix crushed for them.

“He’s extremely smart,” Payton said following the first round of the draft. “We tried to send these guys similar tests—they were identical—the night before, 5:00 p.m., e-mailed the test. When I say the test, the series of first-, second-, third-day install. So quite a bit to study. [When it is] 5:00 p.m. and you get three days of install, and we’re meeting at 9 [o’clock] in the morning, it’s almost purposefully a little bit more than we think. Then at what point do they fail? In other words, it’s a lot. These guys all were really impressive. We got there at 9 a.m. and we gave him the test at 5 p.m. He’s sitting there in the office, and you could tell that he probably had been in the hotel room, do not disturb, pot of coffee, just grinding on it. So he’s extremely intelligent, really smart. He handled a lot of the protections. I gave you five or six different statistics. Negative play differential. When you watch him, it’s pretty calming. He’s very efficient, and it’s not just because of the [underneath throws]. You see a ton of NFL throws in their offense. His accuracy, he set an NCAA record. Then was he making the throws that we’re going to ask him to make? I think the one thing over the years, if you study it closely, guys that get sacked a lot in college tend to get sacked a lot in the NFL. Sometimes, that might be processing. Often times, we’ll look at the offensive line, the ball comes out and it comes out sometimes in funny body positions. He has a quick stroke.”

From the classroom, they transitioned to the field, where Nix threw around 84 passes. His accuracy, ball placement, and ability to retain the information Payton threw at him with the installation test helped solidify his position that Bo was the guy.

He’ll compete for the starting job and is favored to be the Week 1 starter, but Payton isn’t rushing the process and is focused on having Nix get acclimated first, and then the team will go from there.

“I think it’s the same stuff that we want Zach [Wilson] to focus on,” Payton said. “He just got in last week. It’s new. Get acclimated with your teammates. The offseason program, fortunately we’re two weeks in, our rookie camp will be a couple weeks away. It’s that onboarding. It’s a number of things—getting to know your teammates, getting to know the offense and the coaching staff and the system. There’s a process to it. It began tonight for him. I think he’ll be here tomorrow and then a couple weeks from now for the offseason program. It starts [now].”

What’s next for the Broncos rookie? He’ll be flying into Dove Valley this afternoon where he’ll have his introductory press conference at 2:00 p.m. MT.