Perhaps nobody has seen Bo Nix up close and personal on the football field more over the past month than Alex Singleton.
The Broncos pair the top offense and top defense against each other for nearly every facet of training camp and, therefore, Singleton is lined up 5-10 yards away from Nix over and over and over again. Virtually every day.
Singleton isn’t a quarterback evaluator, but in many ways he’s uniquely situated to understand what Nix is doing, how he’s playing and what the opening weeks on the field have looked like for the Denver quarterback after six months of rehabilitating a pair of offseason ankle surgeries.
In Singleton’s mind, the answer is pretty simple.
“He’s playing out of his mind,” the 32-year-old linebacker said Monday.
In the four weeks since the Broncos reported for training camp, the evaluation of and attention on Nix has slowly shifted away from whether he looked like he was all the way past the ankle injury first sustained in January — he’s shown no limitations in practice or Friday against Green Bay — and more toward what kind of third season he may author.
It was almost exactly a year ago when now-offensive coordinator Davis Webb said he thought any quarterback improvement between Year 1 and Year 2 was more about consistency and that Year 3 is when elite quarterbacks make a big jump.
“Thatap just my experience personally and with my friends,” Webb said last summer. “Everybody talks about Year 2, but I think thatap just the world rushing like we do with everything. … It depends on the situation you’re in, the village you’re around, the play-caller, your defense playing good, your O-line’s protecting you, guys are catching it and you’re executing.
“There’s a lot of domino effect there.”
As Bo goes, so do Broncos
The Broncos are betting that they have even more of those dominoes lined up than in previous years, particularly with Webb now calling plays and wide receiver Jaylen Waddle injecting horsepower into the offensive skill group.
Webb himself said earlier this month that Nix is “right on par with the other guys I’ve been around going into Year 3,” which is particularly notable considering Webb has pointed previously to the way Josh Allen exploded in his third season in Buffalo in 2020 when Webb was his backup.
The question that won’t fully be answered until the season is off and running, though, is just how big a jump Nix himself can take. It doesn’t have to be Allen-sized, but he will need to keep pushing forward if the Broncos are going to win a Super Bowl.
Certainly, Nix has won at a rate that puts him near the top of the heap in the NFL, leading the Broncos to the playoffs in each of his first two seasons. By many advanced metrics, he’s more middle of the pack. Several national outlets ranked him in the mimid-to-loweens when it came to the pantheon of current quarterbacks in the game.
Broncos players and coaches aren’t objective observers, of course, but the sense that Nix is set to turn in an eye-popping season is palpable in all corners of Broncos Park.
“I’ve been very impressed,” quarterback Sam Ehlinger told The Post this week. “Obviously, I was impressed when I first got here last year, but he’s been a lot more consistent this year and he’s just in a great spot. You’d never know he’d had an injury at all and thatap not just on the field. In the building, there’s not extra stuff he’s having to do or make a big deal about it. He’s able to do everything.”
Coaches, teammates of various positions and more have expressed similar sentiments. Their reasons vary depending on perspective.
The QB whisperer
Webb’s ascension to play-calling duties certainly plays a role.
So, too, do what so far looks like cleaner footwork, better rhythm and more willingness to stay in the pocket from Nix. Webb talked, too, about trying to marry reads for Nix to more efficiently stay on his top target and then quickly get to No. 2 in hopes of helping alleviate the quarterback’s tendency to rush through his progression.
There’s just plain old comfort in the system. Nix had a new one every year of college and now has been immersed in this one for more than two full years.
“When you have a second-nature thought process and you know the play and you’re not thinking about operation, or emotion or a route concept or a handoff point, you can attack the defense in a little bit more of a strategic way,” Nix said. “So my eyes are up a little bit more. I just feel comfortable. Itap like riding a bike for the third year as opposed to the first. You get up on it and itap just by memory at this point. I feel good. I feel like there’s a lot of growth to be had.”
Away from the huddle and the two-minute drill, Nix has had time to settle into his role as the clear leader and face of the franchise.
“I think he’s letting things that are out of his control not bother him,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey told The Post earlier this month. “I think, as a young player, you think you need to take on every challenge and take on all these different things. Bo is now learning, ‘Hey, that can be a waste of my energy but that isn’t.’ He’s learning how to pick his spots.
“He’s learning what to get fired up about, what to fight the things he doesn’t like and let the things go that maybe don’t really matter.”
There are no guarantees in the NFL and there haven’t been many grand proclamations from the Broncos so far in training camp, but add up weeks worth of practices and the tone consistently coming from teammates and coaches and itap clear the club thinks Nix is on the verge of a huge season.
“He knows the ins and outs of the offense, he’s comfortable with the offensive line,” Ehlinger said. … “He has a ton of reps. Add up how many reps he’s had in the regular seasons and thatap a lot of ball. He knows all the receivers and all the running backs too. He’s making great decisions.
“He’s always been really talented as a thrower but you can really tell that everything’s lining up really well for him.”
