Broncos Camp's Burning Questions: How Quickly Will Bo Nix Take Command?

The biggest unanswered question entering Denver Broncos training camp.

May 23, 2024; Englewood, CO, USA; Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix (10) during organized team activities at Centura Health Training Center. / Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

The Denver Broncos are gearing up for training camp, which opens officially on July 26. The rookies will report on July 17, while the veterans will arrive on July 23.

The cleats hit the grass on the 26th — and then the Broncos' 2024 season begins in earnest. You could say this is just another training camp, but the Broncos have a lot riding on this summer taking shape the way it needs to.

It's not every year that a storied franchise like the Broncos drafts a quarterback in the first round. Heck, you can count on one hand the number of first-round quarterbacks the Broncos have drafted in the past half-century.

It's a big deal for the Broncos. Despite the national perspective's generally dismissive view of Sean Payton's team and doldrums-low expectations, this is a big training camp for the Broncos.

Several significant unanswered questions remain heading into training camp. How these questions are addressed will not only determine the course of the 2024 season but also the Broncos' next five-year stretch.

Between now and July 26, I'll go article by article breaking down these questions and sketching out the best-case answers. First up, it's the penultimate, No. 1 question surrounding the 2024 Broncos: the quarterback situation.

Let's dive in.

How Quickly Will Bo Nix Take Command?

The Broncos can help Nix by not dragging this "open competition" out too long. The safest bet is to assume that Payton won't make a decision and announce the Broncos' starting quarterback until the end of the preseason, but it would be much more fortuitous if it happens early in training camp.

At the conclusion of the offseason training program, one Broncos insider claimed that "almost all media observers" viewed Jarrett Stidham—Denver's only incumbent quarterback—as the team's best guy performance-wise. After all, Stidham does have one year in Payton's scheme under his belt.

However, we didn't hear negative buzz or comments about Nix throughout OTAs, and that includes Payton, his assistant coaches, or any of the rookie's veteran teammates. Quite the opposite, actually. I tend to avoid using absolutes when reporting on the NFL (experience has taught me that lesson the hard way), so at the risk of violating my own rule, the early returns on Nix were universally positive.

However, Zach Wilson is still very much in a state of disrepair, and the buzz on his OTA performance was commensurate with that fact. If the Broncos can get Wilson's confidence back, the team might end up holding onto him as QB2 (because of the financial upside), but only if Nix convincingly vanquishes Stidham. The Broncos could save $5 million on the cap by releasing Stidham and going with Wilson as the veteran backup, who comes with just a $1M salary.

On one hand, Stidham has done nothing to 'lose' his standing as QB1, while, on the other, Payton's hand-picked rookie quarterback earned praise throughout OTAs, whether working with the ones, twos, or third-team offense.

That means that the separation between Stidham and Nix (if, internally, the Broncos actually see some distance separating the two) is razor-thin. That favors the rookie first-rounder in an open competition, if for no other reason than draft pedigree. An organization wants very much to see its first-round picks succeed — especially quarterbacks — and will make exceptions, or put a thumb on the scale to help make it happen.

Now, if we were talking about a second or third-round rookie QB entering the NFL at 21 years old, and if the Broncos weren't coming off an eight-year playoff drought, that margin of separation would favor the veteran. But the Broncos are in a very different situation, as Nix is 24 years old and entered the NFL as the most experienced quarterback to ever emerge from the draft, and the team hasn't sniffed the postseason since Super Bowl 50.

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The Meter is Runnin'

Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton and quarterback Bo Nix at rookie minicamp. / Ben Swanson/Denver Broncos

The Broncos don't have any time to waste, based on Nix's relative age and how long this team has been on the outside looking in. It's been an unprecedented stretch of impotent football for the Broncos. You have to go all the way back to the 1960s for a stretch this dry.

However, Payton has to maintain credibility in the locker room to some extent. He can't be perceived to have handed the job to Nix sight unseen, so to speak — even though the Broncos have no legs to stand on in this regard.

The 2016 Broncos? Yeah, that championship roster had to be reckoned with relative to Gary Kubiak's big coaching decisions. 2024? Not so much.

So the "open competition" is marching ahead, but the sooner Payton names the starter, the sooner that quarterback can get 100% of the first-team reps. This would not only allow him to begin forging chemistry with his skill-position teammates, but the offensive line could begin to gel around him, and thus, the Broncos could begin to actually move the needle. Much of that work is undone and all for naught when a team makes a quarterback change in-season, even if it's moving to an expected first-rounder.

These benefits would be especially rich for a rookie quarterback, though. Payton knows that, but he's got to balance the demands of keeping up appearances internally with his eagerness to turn the page to a new era in Denver. A Nix era. A winning era.

To Heck With Convention

We know Stidham isn't the future. But Nix very well could be. After eight long years of wandering the NFL desert, why wait any longer to begin the process of emerging from it?

Neither Stidham nor Wilson have displayed the sand required to lead an NFL team, let alone one that's been organizationally stuck in neutral for the better part of a decade. The old regime, led by former GM John Elway, could be expected to stick to the traditional lines of thinking, explained away by platitudes such as, "[Player X] gives us the best chance to win."

The new regime, co-led by Payton and GM George Paton, has already proven its willingness to defy NFL convention and media expectations. From benching Russell Wilson to eventually releasing him in the face of an NFL-record $85M dead-cap hit, to cutting other fan-favorite players, to actually drafting a quarterback in the first round, and a guy who'd been branded as a "Day 2" prospect by draftnik consensus, Payton and Paton have shown the intestinal fortitude to make the right decision, even if it is the unpopular one.

Bottom Line

NFL convention would dictate that Payton waits until summer's end to name the starter. That doesn't mean that he has to, or that he will.

There's one unflinching decision left to be made. And the sooner the Broncos name Nix the starter, the sooner this team can begin its path back to competitive relevancy in the NFL.

That decision will come with its share of doubt and criticism. But that hasn't held Payton back so far in the early stages of his Broncos rebuild. Fans can only hope that he'll remain resolute and decisive.

The only way out is through. The Broncos need a leader with the determination and vision to find that path out. Is Payton that leader?

Time will tell. This decision is the litmus test.

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