Sean Payton needed just 16 passes to know Bo Nix was his quarterback

Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton visited Eugene, Ore., in March to watch quarterback Bo Nix’s pro day on a Friday, and for a private workout the next morning. The pro day was impressive — Payton said the team charted 82 of Nix’s throws and 81 were “exactly on the right shoulder.”

In other words, Payton told The Athletic’s “Scoop City” podcast this week, “super accurate.”

Still, there was the private workout and meeting the next morning. Payton and Broncos officials would engage Nix up-close to find out if he was the quarterback the franchise wanted to bet the future on. The Broncos were coming off a disappointing first season under Payton, finishing 8-9 and releasing veteran quarterback Russell Wilson just two years after an expensive trade to land him.

The night before the meeting with Nix, Payton sent Nix three days’ worth of offensive installations, with play formations, progressions, linebacker reads and hot throws against pressure. Payton sent Nix the document at 5 p.m. The next morning Payton and the rest of the Broncos’ party asked Nix to diagram those reads and concepts on a board.

“You’re looking for recall,” Payton said, “he’s doing great.”

Late in the two-hour meeting, Payton asked Nix what was in his backpack. “I’m just waiting for a candy bar, some chewing tobacco, just one vice,” Payton said. Instead, Nix pulled out two different types of cleats (one for turf and one for grass), a lacrosse ball he used to roll under his back, everything in there with a clear football purpose.

“All right,” Payton told Nix, “let’s go throw.”

Payton liked that a bunch of Oregon teammates showed up to support Nix during the workout. He’d also received good feedback from Alex Forsyth, the Broncos center who played with Nix at Oregon in 2022: “Man, this guy is super with protections.”

Payton also knew about Nix’s NCAA single-season completion percentage record set during his final year at Oregon. It’s something Nix was both credited and dinged for during the pre-draft buildup; in Oregon’s offense, Nix threw a lot of quick, short passes.

Payton was a believer, partly because even after Denver’s analytics department removed those short throws when analyzing all the quarterback prospects in the 2024 draft class, Nix still ranked among the most accurate.

Now Payton needed to see Nix go to work. It took just 16 throws for him to make up his mind. At that point in the workout Payton turned to Broncos general manager George Paton and said: “This is the guy.”

After the workout, Payton and Paton rewatched all of Nix’s film: His final two years at Oregon, his first three years at Auburn, and then his time at Oregon again. There was one play in particular that jumped out to Payton.

The most important traits for Payton are a quarterback’s capacity to process the defense and his ability to throw from a “dirty pocket,” with lots of bodies around him. While watching film of Nix at Oregon, Payton stumbled across a third-down play against Cal on which Nix eluded defenders rushing up the field, somehow ducked under the guard and the defender, stepped into a throw in traffic and completed a bullet to his tight end.

Payton replayed the moment and said: “I’ve never seen this before.”

The film study further convinced Payton that Nix was the quarterback he wanted, but it had also revealed a cautionary truth Payton shared with Paton, his GM.

“George, I’m just going to say this: We’re not the only ones seeing it this way,” Payton said. “I’m not worried about where (we draft Nix); let’s not get cute in this process.”

The Broncos had the 12th pick. There were no surprises when Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye went with the first three picks on draft night. The Broncos had been concerned with three other quarterback-needy teams picking in the top half of Round 1: the New York Giants (6th pick), Minnesota Vikings (11th pick) and Las Vegas Raiders (13th pick).

The Giants passed on a quarterback and took receiver Malik Nabers, after which Payton said he felt pretty comfortable with the Broncos’ situation. But then the Atlanta Falcons drafted Michael Penix Jr. with the 8th pick.

“No one saw that (coming),” Payton said.

With Penix off the board, Payton now believed there were three teams in need of a quarterback (the Vikings, Broncos and Raiders) and only two first-round quarterbacks left on the board (J.J. McCarthy and Nix). He started to get nervous.

The Vikings traded with the New York Jets to move up one spot — from No. 11 to No. 10 — to select McCarthy.

With the Jets on the clock at No. 11 and the Broncos anxious at No. 12, Payton turned to Paton: “Call the Jets. Just call them. We don’t want to move up unnecessarily, but I don’t want anything happening like Kansas City.”

Kansas City. During the 2017 draft, while still with New Orleans, Payton and the Saints were so intent on drafting Patrick Mahomes with the 11th pick that he called Drew Brees that night to warn him the Saints would take Mahomes if he was available. Instead, the Chiefs traded up in front of New Orleans and took Mahomes with the 10th pick.

Payton didn’t want that to happen again, so Paton called the Jets to feel them out. “I think the Jets said to George, ‘You called us, what do you want?’” Payton said with a laugh. “And he said, ‘Just checking in.’”

That left the Raiders, sitting one pick behind the Broncos. Payton feared Las Vegas could swoop in and nab Nix much like the Chiefs did with Mahomes.

Payton turned to Paton again: “Call the Raiders and tell them we might want to move back.” Another feeler. The Raiders didn’t want to move up. Now the Broncos just had to wait. The Jets took offensive lineman Olu Fashanu, and Payton, Paton and the Broncos had their guy. Nix was the sixth quarterback drafted in the first 12 picks. Another quarterback wasn’t selected until the fifth round.

On Wednesday, Payton officially named Nix Denver’s starting quarterback, the first rookie to start an opener since John Elway in 1983. Payton has admitted that Nix has a “ton of room for growth” and a “lot of things that he needs to work on,” but he hasn’t wavered on Nix since those first 16 throws in March.

(Top photo: Perry Knotts / Getty Images)