Every pass-rusher in the NFL knows a simple, imperfect reality.
Sacks trump all.
Sacks get you noticed. Sacks get you accolades.
Sacks get you paid.
Itap ironic, then, that amid a breakout season, perhaps no play signifies Nik Bonitto’s growth better than one in which he did something antithetical to sacking the quarterback.
He ran the other way.
In the first quarter last Sunday against Las Vegas, the Raiders were backed up deep and faced third-and-11 from their own 7-yard line.
Thatap hunting territory for a young pass-rusher. Bonitto undoubtedly wanted to make a game-tilting play against the Raiders and quarterback Gardner Minshew.
Instead, he made a heady one. The knockout blow came later.
Bonitto tore up the field on a rush but saw left tackle Kolton Miller release out of the corner of his eye. He spun on a dime, sensing screen, and raced out toward the Raiders’ trio of receivers. Bonitto’s angle put him right in the throw’s path, resulting in an incompletion.
It may not seem like a big deal, but there’s a reason that mention of that particular sequence brought a smile to Bonitto’s face in the locker room this week.
Rookie-year Nik Bonitto? No way he makes that read. In 2022 he’d have raced at the quarterback and then hoped his teammates made the play behind him.
“Oh yeah, no. I was like a blind dog,” Bonitto told The Denver Post. “See ball, get ball. I was just trying to run fast to wherever I saw the ball. I would not have made those types of plays, for sure.”
Third-year Nik Bonitto not only has 10 sacks, he’s made this type of play much more consistently.
“Itap just maturity,” outside linebackers coach Michael Wilhoite told The Post. “Itap maturity in ‘I’m not playing for me. I’m playing for everybody else and for my teammates.’ Itap maturity in, ‘I’m not just going to run up the field and run at the quarterback. I’m going to feel the play and I feel this tackle leave, it must be a screen.’
“The maturity to turn and run full speed and do it hard.”
Bonitto has 10 sacks in the Broncos’ past 10 games. He’s the first Denver defender since 2018 to hit double-digit sacks and he’s shown no signs of slowing down with five games left on the docket.
His ability to affect opposing quarterbacks is going to make him a candidate for a massive contract sometime in the next 12 months. The growth in all of the other areas of his game, however, is why he’s found himself here in the first place.
“Special ability”
Bonitto’s a natural-born pass-rusher.
Itap how he made his name in college at Oklahoma and itap why the Broncos selected him No. 64 overall in the 2022 draft.
“We thought Nik was one of the better pass-rushers coming out,” general manager George Paton said that night. “The bend, the speed, the burst. Very natural.”
He showed it in flashes over the course of his rookie season, but saw his playing time drop in the middle of the year and finished with 1.5 sacks while playing about 35% of Denver’s defensive snaps.
“I was still kind of raw coming in,” he said. “I knew I had some ability but also knew I had things to work on.”
After Sean Payton got the job and put together his defensive staff in the winter of 2023, Bonitto had new coaches sizing him up.
New defensive coordinator Vance Joseph knew him from draft prep in Arizona, where he’d held the same title.
“We saw the special ability,” Joseph said. “You’re always chasing pass rushers in a 3-4 defense. This kid was a natural rusher in college. Coming here his rookie year, you could see the traits.”
Wilhoite had been in the division with the Los Angeles Chargers but coaching inside linebackers.
He saw ability, too, but also something else.
“I thought he was talented but just didn’t have a vision for himself and didn’t have a direction for himself, didn’t really know where he wanted to go yet,” Wilhoite said. “That might not even be right. Could be completely false. It was just the way I perceived him based on what I had seen.”
Bonitto felt the same way. He was unsure and channeled it by being over-eager to rush. He knew he wasn’t a great run defender, so he tried to over-compensate.
Under Wilhoite and Joseph, he took a big jump in 2023. His playing time ticked up to more than half, he recorded 8.5 sacks and he played better against the run.
In Year 3, the results are even better across the board.
Bonitto didn’t start the Broncos’ opener and played just 34% of the defensive snaps but saw his playing time jump immediately when Baron Browning got hurt Week 2 against Pittsburgh.
Since then, Bonitto’s played 60% or more six times in 11 games — not Jonathon Cooper-level playing time, but substantial. Bonitto only hit 60% once in the second half of last year after Browning returned from a knee injury.
“The more you can play, the more chance you have to rush,” Joseph said. “If you’re only a DPR (designated pass-rusher), we can’t play you every down. As Nik improves, he’s gotten strong in the run game. He’s playing the run very well. Thatap allowed him to have more rushes. Being a firmer player on the edge has allowed him to rush more often.
“Now his special trait has shown, and thatap pass-rushing.”
Indeed, Bonitto recently had a stretch where he registered a pressure rate north of 20% four straight games, and he’s recorded a sack in nine of the Broncos’ past 10.
“He’s free to just roll”
Bonitto’s highlight-reel moment against Las Vegas came in the fourth quarter with the Broncos leading by seven.
He started with his most trusted asset: Among rushers with 30-plus pressures this season, Bonitto’s average get-off (reaction time for pass-rushers after a snap) of .75 seconds is tied for fifth-fastest, according to Next Gen Stats. But he identified his angle and adjusted mid-rush, driving through Miller and walking him back into quarterback Desmond Ridder with a power move.
STRIP-SACK, NIK BONITTO‼️
📺: CBS
— Denver Broncos (@Broncos)
The ball popped free and defensive lineman Malcolm Roach jumped on it.
Roach after the game called Bonitto one of the game’s best rushers and added, “He’s so nonchalant about it. The game comes so easy for him.”
That smooth operating, though, makes it easy to perhaps gloss over a part of Bonitto that Wilhoite has come to appreciate.
“Nik takes everything to heart,” he said. “Nik wants to be the best at everything he does. And when I say best, I don’t mean ‘better than him.’ I mean he wants to be the best that he can be at everything.”
The more the coaching staff gave him to work on, the more his development accelerated.
The same goes for leadership.
“Something that people don’t talk enough about with Nik is how unselfish he is and how much he wants his teammates to do well,” Wilhoite said. “His standard for himself right now is performing at a high level for my guys, for my teammates.”
When Bonitto was drafted, the Broncos had Bradley Chubb and Randy Gregory as their top pair. Then Chubb got traded and Denver signed Frank Clark last summer. Neither Gregory nor Clark made it through October.
This fall, Browning got traded, too, in no small part because of the player Bonitto’s become.
The present and future of the room start with Cooper and Bonitto.
“Even when Baron was here, Nik still kind of hung back,” Wilhoite said. “When you get rid of those pieces, the Randys, the Barons, now there’s no hanging back for Nik. There’s nobody else. Now he’s free to just roll. Just go. Thatap what he feels right now. Again, it makes him now the leader.
“Him being the leader and him being conscious of his players and of his teammates, itap just — OK, now I really have to go. I used to have kind of a built-in excuse with the other guys, I kind of went behind them. Now? No, I’ve got to be the guy.”
Under the radar? Not for long
There aren’t many under-the-radar 14-sack seasons in the NFL.
Bonitto is tracking toward something like that.
Of course, if he finishes in that kind of territory, the accolades won’t be far behind.
This is the beauty of the season Denver’s defense has put together, though.
Every double-team of Zach Allen leaves John Franklin-Myers, Bonitto or Cooper with a one-on-one matchup.
Every time a tight end or running back chips Bonitto on a third down, itap less time the back end has to cover that player.
Itap a group that ranks first in the NFL in sacks (44) and pressures (192) and is fourth in pressure rate (39.6%) despite not having household names in its front seven.
Bonitto exemplifies that.
“He’s just calm. He’s quiet. He’s not a loud guy, not an obnoxious guy,” Wilhoite said. “He can come in and get a lift in and probably nobody even knows he’s there. Thatap how Nik is. Itap not that he doesn’t want to talk or he’s being rude or disrespectful, itap just, he’s a quiet guy and he sticks to himself.
“At the end of the day, one thing about Nik is Nik is going to watch the film, Nik is going to prepare, he’s going to study and he’s going to work hard.”
Results have followed.
The sack total will get all the attention. It will be the driving force behind an eventual contract that could exceed $20 million per year. But those flash plays are really only a byproduct of all the growth he’s shown in other facets of the game.
“It all works together,” Wilhoite said. “He won’t fly under the radar very long, but the longer he does, the better for us.”
NFL sack leaders
| Name | Team | Sacks |
|---|---|---|
| Trey Hendrickson | Cincinnati | 11.5 |
| Danielle Hunter | Houston | 10.5 |
| Nik Bonitto | Denver | 10.0 |
| Myles Garrett | Cleveland | 10.0 |
| Will Anderson | Houston | 9.5 |
Fastest get-off (min. 30 pressures)
| Player | Team | Get-off (Seconds) |
|---|---|---|
| Nick Bosa | San Francisco | 0.69 |
| Myles Garrett | Cleveland | 0.72 |
| Harold Landry | Tennessee | 0.73 |
| Will Anderson | Houston | 0.74 |
| Nik Bonitto | Denver | 0.75 |
| Kwity Paye | Indianapolis | 0.75 |
| Trey Hendrickson | Cincinnati | 0.76 |
| Jonathon Cooper | Denver | 0.76 |
*NFL Next Gen Stats data
Balanced Broncos rush
| Name | Sacks | Pressures | Pressure Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nik Bonitto | 10 | 37 | 14.2% |
| Jonathon Cooper | 7 | 37 | 12.5% |
| Zach Allen | 5 | 46 | 11.8% |
| John Franklin-Myers | 5 | 30 | 12.6% |
| Jonah Elliss | 4 | 17 | 10.8% |
*NFL Next Gen Stats data
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