The Broncos’ franchise quarterback received the birthday gift of a lifetime.
About a month after his whirlwind second season in Denver came to a close, Bo Nix and his wife Izzy have officially welcomed their first child, daughter Riley Belle Nix, as Izzy Nix posted to her Instagram on Wednesday. The baby was born Feb. 25 — remarkably, also Bo’s 26th birthday.
”The best birthday party I’ve ever been to,” Izzy Nix wrote on Instagram Wednesday.
Izzy Nix first confirmed the couple was expecting their first child in an Instagram post in October, with the caption “Nix party of 3!!!”
Life will suddenly get busier for Nix, who’s been rehabbing a fractured ankle suffered in the Broncos’ wild-card win over the Bills that abruptly ended his season. Two days after the Broncos’ eventual season-ending loss in the AFC championship game, head coach Sean Payton said Nix was moving around the Broncos’ facility on his scooter, and Izzy posted an Instagram story in early February of Nix wheeling out to the curb to check the mailbox.
Once his initial rehab is complete — which should be soon, after Nix said in late January that the fracture was a “typical bone break” that would rule him out for four to six weeks — Nix will enter an offseason regimen to re-enter a system that suddenly will look much different. On Tuesday, head coach Sean Payton aligned the tea leaves and confirmed that offensive coordinator Davis Webb will assume play-calling duties in Denver.
“I think he really likes what he’s begun to do here with us, and the start of working with a young quarterback,” Payton said Tuesday, asked if play-calling duties were an incentive for the 31-year-old Webb to stay in Denver.
Nix and Payton’s relationship has accelerated in Year Two, as two white-hot competitors have continued to feel out what gets the other in rhythm as quarterback and head coach. Privately, though, some in Nix’s camp believe the shift to Webb will be a positive for the third-year quarterback, as Payton said Tuesday that “being quicker” in offensive operation was a reason for passing off duties.
The next few months will be heavily important for Nix, then, both professionally and privately. And the Broncos remain as high as ever in public messaging around their 2024 first-round pick.
“He has that ‘it factor,’” Broncos general manager George Paton said at an end-of-year press conference. “I don’t think you can teach that. You either have it or you don’t, and he has it. And so, wow. In two years, we have a quarterback that can win, win at a high level. He’s best in big moments. We’ve seen that. Does he have areas to improve? Yes, like all quarterbacks. But we have a quarterback who has that factor that’s best in big moments. That’s pretty big.”
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