There was something in the air at home,throat and lungs struggling under the thick Alabama heat, the kind of Southern sun that could soak a white shirt grey in minutes’ time. This was what Bo Nix knew, and knows, and loves. Where he could train, as he smiled, in a video peek into his offseason routine . Away from prying eyes; away from the very real possibility of a 12-year-old kid walking up to him and asking if his ankle is crooked.
The humidity squeezes out his true personality, as Nix’s longtime QB trainer Ben Neill reflected. Fans in Denver are starting to learn what Nix’s circle already knows: he is funny. He doesn’t swear. He deadpans. And so Neill teed him up one day on a field this July in Birmingham, Alabama, as Nix dropped back to drill his deep ball.
“I was talking about, ‘Man, you’re probably excited to throw those to (Jaylen) Waddle,'” Neill recalled, referencing the Broncos’ newest star wideout.
“And he’s like, ‘Yeah, I might have to get it out a little earlier. That guy walks fast.'”
On the very night the Broncos sent a first-round pick to Miami in exchange for the game-changing receiver, Nix went to dinner — along with a handful of other franchise difference-makers — with Waddle at local steakhouse Guard and Grace. Nix’s excitement has been palpable since, both privately and publicly. In June, he told reporters Waddle would add a “level of explosiveness.” And with such talent, with such power,comes responsibility.
Last year, asked how much he believed Denver’s franchise was built around its 26-year-old franchise quarterback, reserve QB Sam Ehlinger told The Post that it’s “all about Bo.” That has never been more true, as Nix heads into his third season in Denver after a disjointed ascension in his sophomore year. Head coach Sean Payton wouldn’t have promoted Davis Webb to play-caller without Nix in mind. General manager George Paton certainly wouldn’t have parted with prized draft capital for Waddle without Nix in mind. All of it hinges on the health of the most important right ankle in Denver, heading into this week’s start of training camp — and the health of Nix’s mind, by proxy.
Neill, a trainer with QB Country who spent weeks with Nix in Alabama this offseason, knows that Bo knows. All of it.
“He’s very aware of the stakes, and the sacrifice, and the responsibility that comes with all the things they’re doing,” Neill told The Post in mid-July. “And I would say not only is he aware of it, but he’s built for it. Like, he’s frickin’ built for it. And he knows he is. He’s built to be a franchise quarterback, and he doesn’t take that lightly.”
‘He trusts his body’
How he’s built, of course, won’t matter if the lower half is shaky. And as veterans ready to report for training camp Tuesday, the entire outlook of the Broncos’ 2026 calendar — and Nix’s not-too-distant earning potential — depends on the stability of the quarterback’s ankles. After months of confusing messaging around his shocking ankle break in Denver’s AFC wild-card win and a follow-up surgery to remove bone spurs in late April, Nix mostly quashed wider concerns about his long-term ankle health with an appropriately deadpan media session in June.
Of course, it doesn’t take an ankle specialist to foster worry with Nix’s surgical chart. The quarterback has now had at least four publicly reported invasive procedures on his ankles since high school ball, and Denver and head coach Sean Payton took a conservative approach with Nix’s participation in the Broncos’ summer practices.
Now, an actual ankle specialist told The Post he’d be “certainly concerned” about the long-term effects of Nix’s ankle fractures, but saw no issues with the quarterback’s ramp-up in the short-term.
“As being a guy that’s very mobile and relies on his legs to be a significant part of his game, that always kind of adds another question to it,” said Dr. Nicholas Strasser, an ankle specialist
“I think I’m overall optimistic,” Strasser added, “that he’ll be able to get back to things … right now I’m not hearing anything that would make me super concerned.”
Strasser told The Post that athletes’ initial recovery from a bone-spur ankle clean-up typically falls around six weeks, followed by a ramp-up period and full ankle comfort within a total three-month span. That directly fits Nix’s timetable: the quarterback took a few walkthrough reps on the final day of Broncos minicamp June 11 and returned to Alabama to train around early July, around two months after the bone-spur removal.
Neill told The Post that Nix’s follow-up procedure “wasn’t that big of a setback” in his regular summer training, and the quarterback was able to work regular “body prep and movement prep” while ramping up his ankle.
“He was able to do a lot of that work, and throw, even if he was taking his time off his foot and still kinda working his motion,” Neill said. “He just probably couldn’t get to like, full-speed drops and stuff as fast as he wanted to. But we really weren’t set to do a ton of those anyway.”
Nix, Neill said, wanted to focus specifically in offseason work on generating more torque and quickening his release, but made no drastic changes to his regular offseason regimen given his recovery. The two talk on the phone throughout the offseason, and their schematic conversations this spring and summer were similar to 2025: Amass a mental bank of as many different defensive wrinkles as possible to inform and recognize those wrinkles in live-game settings.
Not much changed, back in the familiarly abrasive Alabama heat. Nix lifted. He drilled. He threw. And, notably, Neill didn’t see him favoring his left leg.
“I honestly think he trusts it,” Neill said when asked if he felt Nix would change his scrambling habits to protect his ankle. “He trusts his body. He trusts the work that he’s done. And I don’t see it affecting him really at all, to be honest with you.”
That, of course, will only be determined once Nix tugs a set of pads over his 6-foot-2 shoulders come this week. This Denver franchise, after all, has bet its health on his.
“Everything he said — I mean, if I could draw it up from the draft room two years ago, this is how you’d draw it up,” Neill said. “Obviously, you wouldn’t draw up the injury. But the progress that they’ve had and the direction they’re going, and how they’re putting together the team and adding the explosive piece with Waddle, is exactly how you’d want to do it.
“And (Bo) is really happy about him.”
