Bo Nix popped, again, back onto the soles of his feet. The same way he’d done through a sophomore season of brutal hits and blistering comebacks at Auburn, always down and never out. The same he’d done for 63 straight games since transferring to Oregon in 2022, the move that put him on a collision course toward changing the fate of football in Denver.
And here, with the Broncos’ greatest win in the last decade all but wrapped up, Nix went to the sideline and told Sean Payton the five haunting words that might derail this dream in Denver.
“My ankle doesn’t feel right,” Nix said to Payton, a Broncos source told The Denver Post.
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A first-and-10 designed run for Nix had come up empty the previous play, as Bills safety Cole Bishop zipped through Denver’s formation to wrap up the Broncos quarterback by the ankles for a loss of two. Nix came up limping ever so slightly, as the broadcast showed. His face, though, looked a little worse for wear. Broncos coaches knew he was hurt from that statement alone. But they thought, in the moment, it could’ve been just a high-ankle sprain, as the Broncos source told The Post.
“The kid’s tough as nails,” the source said. “So — this kid’s a warrior. He’s a competitor.”
Nix took a few-step drop on second down from Buffalo’s 38-yard-line, reared back, and dropped in a perfect ball to Marvin Mims that drew a pass-interference flag on Bills corner Tre’Davious White. Game over. Season over for Buffalo.
Season over for Denver, maybe, too.
Two plays later, Nix took a knee to ice an eventual game-winning field goal from kicker Wil Lutz. A minute later, orange jerseys spilled out across the grass at Empower Field, reveling in a 33-30 overtime win over Buffalo that had landed squarely on the shoulders of their 25-year-old quarterback. Defensive tackle Malcolm Roach raised his fists to the heavens. Cornerback Pat Surtain II spread his arms and pattered around the green like a self-controlled airplane. None of them had any idea as to what was wrong with Nix until Payton, in street clothes, strode back to the postgame podium for the second time Saturday night after the madness cleared.
Nix, Payton said, had fractured a bone in his right ankle. He’d be out for the year.
Renck: Super Bo or bust? Nix breaks ankle. Jarrett Stidham, you got next
“I would’ve tried to kept it — so I could talk to the team first,” Payton told reporters. “But the odds of something like this being kept quiet until Monday at 9:00 (a.m.) are impossible. And so, I felt like, in essence — I’m talking to the team now.
“So, look, they’ll be disappointed,” Payton continued. “There’ll be a lot of emotions, and then the refocus takes place.”
But how do these No. 1-seeded Broncos refocus, just two games from hoisting a Lombardi Trophy, without the young arm and leader this entire organization has been built around?
In December, talking with The Denver Post about Payton’s approach to roster-building, backup quarterback Sam Ehlinger said, “it’s all about Bo.” Offensive-line pieces such as Garett Bolles and Quinn Meinerz have been developed and extended in front of him. Defensive pieces such as Talanoa Hufanga and Dre Greenlaw were brought in to increase Denver’s overall strength at playing complementary football. And Nix’s level of responsibility and trust in Payton’s offense has only grown throughout 2025 — particularly as starting running back J.K. Dobbins went down in November.
In the locker room Saturday night — before the Nix injury news, tight end Adam Trautman’s eyes popped as The Post recounted Nix’s final statistics against the Bills. Denver’s second-year quarterback threw the ball 46 times (for 279 yards, three touchdowns and a pick). He ran the ball 12 times (for 29 yards). All in all, the Broncos ran a total of 68 plays from the line of scrimmage in their win against Buffalo.
Nix either threw the ball or ran the ball himself on 85% of them.
“Oh, wow,” Trautman said, angling his head in slight disbelief. “Gosh.”
“I think it’s great,” Trautman said, after a question on Payton’s belief in Nix. “And Bo’s earned the trust. Because we’ve been in situations like this … we’ve been in these positions all year.”
They were in that same position again on Saturday, staring directly down the barrel of a 14-3 season ending unceremoniously in the AFC divisional round. Denver assembled with four minutes to play in regulation, down 27-23 after a true seesaw of a playoff game, its offense having once again sputtered to a halt in a season of fits and starts.
Nobody flinched, as Trautman recalled, because of the man in the middle.
“It’s like, ‘Alright. We got Bo. Let’s see what happens,'” Trautman said. “You’re not like, ‘Oh, we gotta be careful!’
“It’s like, ‘Nah, let’s go.'”
Nix didn’t say anything specific, as Trautman remembered. It was just feel. The earned confidence of a quarterback who’d orchestrated a league-high seven game-winning drives in the regular season, and who left tackle Garett Bolles said has “ice in his veins.” Nix hit Courtland Sutton for 11 yards to start the drive, and Sutton again for 25 on a third-and-11 three plays later, and dropped a beauty into Marvin Mims Jr.’s outstretched arms to cap off yet another go-ahead fourth-quarter drive.
“Threw a freakin’ dime to Marv,” tight end Evan Engram said, postgame.
Renck: Super Bo or bust? Nix breaks ankle. Jarrett Stidham, you got next
Less than an hour later, though, Nix was sitting in a hallway in Empower Field with his family, mulling the news. Payton, the man who’d handpicked him out of Oregon, came over. Nix told Payton — as he’s repeated to reporters multiple times — that God had a plan for him.
“I said, ‘I didn’t realize that,'” Payton joked. “I said, ‘If I hadn’t known that, I wouldn’t have drafted you.'”
Payton, too, told Nix that this Broncos team has lost key players all year. They played Sunday without Dobbins, starting center Luke Wattenberg and safety Brandon Jones. And the head coach told his quarterback that they’d “rise up for the next challenge.”
The man whom Payton will count on, in that case, is 29-year-old backup Jarrett Stidham. And there’s a strong sense of belief throughout the staff and organization in Stidham, who put on a show in preseason and began his career playing behind Tom Brady in New England. Payton, for one, put on a confident face at Saturday’s second postgame presser.
“I said this at the beginning of the season — I feel like I’ve got a No. 2 that’s capable of starting for a handful, a number of teams,” Payton said. “And I know he feels the same way. So watch out. Just watch.”
Payton, too, has talked about “painting the picture” for the quarterback multiple times in building this Broncos roster. That didn’t apply to just Nix. That’s this QB room in general, with Stidham and veteran Sam Ehlinger under the watchful eye of rising Denver assistant Davis Webb.
But Nix was the soul of this Broncos team, with an earned confidence in moments like Saturday’s. And Denver will have to find a way to carry the faith without him.
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