Broncos QB Bo Nix Touted as a 2025 MVP Candidate by NFL.com

The Denver Broncos are gearing up for training camp, which leaves us only a few days of the offseason remaining. Looking ahead to the 2025 regular season, the Broncos have several highly anticipated players drawing league-wide scrutiny.

At the top of the list is second-year quarterback Bo Nix. Last year, Nix rewrote the Broncos' rookie record books and forced his way into the Offensive Rookie of the Year conversation. As an alternate, he earned a possible Pro Bowl nod, but declined due to an offseason clean-up surgery.

Could an even greater accolade be in store for Nix? NFL.com's Eric Edholm went around the league, picking the most likely MVP candidate for each team. Guess which Bronco Edholm tapped?

"A year ago, I picked Patrick Surtain II for this piece, and he was named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year. Surtain was tremendous, and the Broncos’ defense -- already a top-five unit last season -- arguably could be better in 2025. But for Denver to reach a new plateau, it will take Nix building on what he accomplished in an impressive rookie season, which helped lead the franchise back to the playoffs," Edholm wrote. "Broncos LT Garett Bolles called Nix a 'freak of nature' following his first year, and new TE Evan Engram said Nix has 'everything that it takes to be great' in the NFL. The quarterback himself believes his understanding of Sean Payton’s offense will be far stronger in Year 2. Nix pushed Jayden Daniels in the OROY battle last season, and if the Broncos can overtake the Chiefs in the AFC West, you’d have to imagine Nix would be a big part of that."

As Nix goes this season, so will the Broncos. With Sean Payton in the fold, there's every reason to expect Nix to take another step forward, and no cause to fear the dreaded "sophomore slump."

It's one thing to assert confidence that Nix will avoid a year-two regression, but could he elevate the Broncos' fortunes to a level where he becomes a bona fide MVP candidate? Skeptics will say that the young signal-caller lacks the supporting cast to achieve such a feat, but a franchise quarterback is the tide that raises all ships.

Even as a rookie still mired in his trial-and-error learning curve, Nix elevated the guys around him. Denver's previously solid but middling offensive line finished as one of the NFL's top two units, allowing the third-fewest sacks.

Courtland Sutton returned to the 1,000-yard receiving club, and Marvin Mims Jr.'s emergence down the stretch hinted at the promise of further fireworks to come from the two-time Pro Bowl returner. Fellow rookie, Devaughn Vele, had the most productive first season of any wideout drafted in the seventh round since Marques Colston in 2006.

None of this was a coincidence. As an organization, the Broncos rode the rising Nix tide all the way to a playoff berth, snapping the team's previous eight-year postseason drought.

It's safe to say that Nix did more with less than any rookie quarterback last season. And one could argue that he did more with less than any veteran, for that matter.

If the Broncos are able to translate last year's double-digit-winning success into the 2025 season, there's no telling to what heights Nix could climb. The Broncos didn't rest on their laurels, after all, signing a two-time Pro Bowl tight end this offseason to give Nix another receiving weapon, and adding two very talented running backs, one of whom was the second-most-explosive back in the FBS last season.

The Takeaway

Nix has a mountain of adversity to overcome before he can truly join the ranks of the NFL's MVP candidates, and much left to prove, but I wouldn't put it beyond the bounds of the plausible. Don't forget, as a young quarterback, he'll also be complemented by one of the NFL's best defenses, a unit that many national publications have predicted to finish No. 1 this season.

Nix is loaded for bear on this hunt. And soon, the colors will begin to turn in the Rocky Mountains, signaling that hunting season has arrived.