Anyone who analyzes the Denver Broncos roster will be hard pressed to find a glaring hole or vulnerability. Sure, no team stacks Pro Bowlers up and down every depth chart across the roster, but the Broncos have all the building blocks in place, including the four cornerstone positions.
That's an amazing accomplishment considering this team had no first-round draft picks for three years spanning 2022-2023. A feather in the cap of Broncos GM George Paton indeed.
When it comes to this roster, which player offers the most "promising" building block to the Broncos? Bleacher Report's Moe Moton understandably took the low-hanging fruit, naming second-year quarterback Bo Nix as that coveted roster piece for Denver.
"If Nix can build on a promising rookie campaign, the Broncos have found their franchise quarterback," Moton wrote. "In a conference stacked with elite signal-callers like Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen and Joe Burrow, he may struggle to earn All-Pro and Pro Bowl accolades, but his production will tell the full story about his ceiling as a pro."
As we learned this past January, the Pro Bowl isn't a priority for Nix. If he truly, deeply desired the accolade, he would have instead postponed the minor ankle surgery he underwent. He opted for a team-first approach instead of appearing in the Pro Bowl Games and adding the award to his resume.
Nix was more concerned with getting healthy and having the time needed to recover in order to be 100% available for his team when the offseason training program rolled around. His decision to decline the Pro Bowl invitation may have been a setback for his resume, but it could end up being a massive blessing to the Broncos in the long run as he works to build on his record-breaking rookie campaign.
Moton's point isn't lost on me, though. The AFC features a murderer's row of elite quarterbacks, but Nix has already shown that he can shine with the best of them, as his 29 touchdown passes last season ranked fifth among all NFL signal-callers. If that isn't an encouraging harbinger, I don't know what is. Moton continues.
"Last offseason, Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton raised eyebrows when he compared Bo Nix to former 13-time Pro Bowl quarterback Drew Brees. Nix still has a long way to go to measure up to those comparisons, but in his first year, the Oregon product proved he can handle an accomplished and demanding head coach who knows how to turn a quarterback into a league star," Moton wrote. "Nix led all rookie quarterbacks in passing yards (3,775) and touchdown passes (29) and tacked on 430 yards and four touchdowns on the ground. He's dynamic, accurate and off to a strong start among his peers from a loaded quarterback class."
In a quarterback draft class being hailed as the deepest in many years, Nix was the sixth one taken in the first round. And his selection came with no small amount of blowback and criticism for the Broncos.
Nix was a "reach." He was a "system quarterback" at Oregon. He lacked the requisite arm strength and talent to make "all the NFL throws." The list of freezing-cold takes goes on and on.
Yet, as Moton writes, Nix out-performed all rookie quarterbacks in the final analysis. Washington's Jayden Daniels took home the Offensive Rookie of the Year award, but Nix out-gunned him in many ways.
There's a reason that Nix was being compared to Brees as an NFL draft prospect, long before the Broncos ultimately took him at No. 12 overall. The fact that the NFL allowed the closest thing we've seen to Brees to land in Payton's lap will be something Denver's rivals and peers will rue for years to come.
The Takeaway
Undoubtedly, Nix is the Broncos' single most promising building block. When it comes to the aforementioned cornerstone roster pieces, an NFL team seeks to acquire franchise players at quarterback (check), left tackle (check), edge rusher (check), and cornerback (check).
Nix ticks the first box, with Garett Bolles, Nik Bonitto, and Patrick Surtain II — all of whom have earned at least one All-Pro nod over the past few years — checking the other three, respectively. This establishes the foundation upon which the Broncos can build something truly special over the next four or five years.
But it all starts with Nix.
