Here's Why Broncos QB Bo Nix Will Win Offensive Rookie of the Year
The Denver Broncos have found their franchise quarterback. Bo Nix is getting better as the season progresses and has helped bring the winning ways back to the Mile High City.
Nix is going to cap off the 2024 season by taking home the Offensive Rookie of the Year award. Sounds like a bold prediction, right? Allow me to illustrate.
The main competition for the award is Las Vegas Raiders tight end Brock Bowers and Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels. Bowers is having a great season, but this is a quarterback-driven league, and the battle between Nix and Daniels will lead to the ultimate winner. Not to mention there has never been a tight end to win the award.
Daniels had a hot start in 2024, and it looked as though he would run away with the trophy. But he has cooled off, and Nix is now red-hot and is getting all sorts of OROY buzz. This is where the award starts to lean towards Nix.
Nix is trending up in every major statistical category while Daniels is trending down or flat. The most sizable difference is in passing touchdowns. Nix is already leading in this category 14 to 10 and is one touchdown outside the top 10 of all quarterbacks.
Daniels is not even in the top 20. Passing for scores gets plenty of attention, and Nix leads in touchdowns per attempt with 0.04. That number is increasing.
Over the last four games, Nix is leading Daniels in passing yards per game by 25 yards, passer rating by 20 points and completion percent by 12. Like I said, Nix is red-hot right now.
Projecting these trends through the rest of the season shows that Nix will be ahead of Daniels in every category when the season concludes, even though the Commanders' rookie had the head start. The pace Nix is currently on will vault him into the top 10 of all quarterbacks this season in several categories. Those are the type of full-season statistics that garner attention for a rookie.
It's not out of the question to see Nix's final stats for the season at 67% completion, 3,800 yards passing, 25 touchdowns, and eight interceptions. That would be one of the top rookie seasons for a quarterback statistically.
Now let's compare Nix to the last four OROY winners who played quarterback. His numbers are better in every category when compared to Kyler Murray’s rookie season and has a better completion percentage and pass touchdowns per attempt than C.J. Stroud’s rookie campaign.
Nix trails Justin Herbert and Dak Prescott in every category, but both had two of the best rookie seasons of all time. This puts Nix squarely in the middle of the pack of the last four quarterback winners of the award.
Furthermore, the Broncos are winning for the first time in almost a decade. The Broncos have had a carousel of quarterbacks over the past eight years, and none of them could get them close to a playoff berth, but with Nix at the helm, they sit as the No. 7 seed in the AFC Playoff Picture.
With the way the Broncos are playing and Nix heating up down the stretch, the playoffs are almost a foregone conclusion. All of this adds up to Nix being victorious in the race for the Offensive Rookie of the Year award.
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