Six years and plenty of football later, Tez Johnson still calls it the greatest play ever made. He is biased. But Jan. 27, 2019, did represent the moment Johnson realized that a receiver, under any circumstances, could never turn their back on Bo Nix behind center.
In Nix’s final year of high school at Pinson Valley High in Alabama, a snap flew over his head during one game against nearby rival Clay-Chalkville High. Most members of the offensive and defensive lines, teenagers as they were, stopped running much. Nix didn’t. He scooped the loose fumble, danced for a moment, and flung an NBA-style chest pass to a diving Johnson down the right sideline for a first down.
This has always been Nix’s identity. Backyard ball, as Nix himself put it this week. He embraced chaos, back in Alabama. Somewhere along the way, from Auburn to Oregon and offenses that relied on quick-hit timing, Nix was slapped with the “system quarterback” label. The pre-draft chatter got so loud in 2024 that longtime quarterback instructor David Morris — sensing a growing momentum on Nix’s evaluation — intentionally designed his Pro Day showcase at Oregon around a variety of on-the-move throwing concepts.
“That was, really, our goal last year — to show off how talented he is,” Morris told The Denver Post back this spring.
“Like, to me, he’s much more (Patrick) Mahomes than he is Drew Brees.”
In his second year in Denver, Nix has often swung full Mahomes — dancing, darting, firing from any and all arm angles — under the head coach that paired with Brees for 14 years of some of the most devastating offenses in recent NFL memory. In early September Payton pointed to Nix’s ability to throw off-platform as a “part of his game we wouldn’t address.” That’s never something, offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi said Thursday, that the Broncos’ staff would try to rein in. And entering Week 14, the 25-year-old Nix’s tendency to operate in motion is approaching levels the league’s never seen.
According to Next Gen Stats (NGS), Nix has thrown 26% of his passes on the run this season — the highest rate of any NFL quarterback since NGS came into existence in 2016. And Payton’s Broncos have fully leaned into Nix’s backyard-ball approach to break plays down, as receivers’ understanding of how to scramble with Nix has become “huge in our offense,” veteran Courtland Sutton said this week.
The latest and loudest example came last Sunday, when Nix stepped up in the pocket in the red zone on a two-minute drill to meet the grabbing arm of Commanders edge Preston Smith. Sutton, dragging across the end zone, instinctively stayed on his route. And Nix, while getting dragged to the turf by Smith, cocked and fired an 11-yard bullet to Sutton for the most remarkable touchdown of the Broncos’ season.
It drew an explosion of buzz. It also was the kind of thing Johnson, Nix’s adopted brother, got used to back in Alabama.
“No one sees what he does in the dark,” Johnson told The Post this week. “And I mean, I think that’s why everyone’s just so amazed by – when he can make a throw on the run like that. It’s crazy, the things that he’s done on the run that nobody’s ever seen. Only the family have, yes. We’ve seen it. But nobody else has, because this is them just now trying to tune in and be like, ‘Oh, this guy’s good.’
“He’s always been like that.”
His receivers in Denver have learned this. Slowly. It clicked for Sutton in early December last year, when the Broncos hosted the Browns on Monday Night Football and Nix rolled to his right in the third quarter. Sutton, running a deep drag, had Cleveland inside linebacker Jordan Hicks trailing in a zone.
“There’s no way I’m getting this ball,” Sutton recalled thinking.
Then he glanced up, and Nix laid a 32-yard dart on the move into his chest.
“That’s one thing that I’ve learned through trial and error with Bo, is understanding that the play’s never dead,” Sutton said. “He has a lot of confidence in his arm, and he has a lot of confidence in us.”
There are traditional rules that apply to offenses scrambling when plays break down, as Payton, Nix and Lombardi all noted this week. The far sideline receiver should usually break back to the ball and then fly long. A receiver over the middle should find some sort of lane. These all hold true, in Denver.
“So, that’s real,” Payton affirmed, this week.
It’s also learned over time, tight end Adam Trautman said Monday. On one third-quarter play against the Commanders, Nix escaped right — a favorite mechanism of his — as Trautman was dragging across the formation. Rookie Pat Bryant, running deep from the slot, curled back 360 degrees to run right with Nix.
Trautman, seeing Bryant veering right in front of him, slowed up. Nix found a sliver to Bryant, and the rookie hauled in a key 16-yard completion.
Really interesting example of spacing in this #Broncos offense when Bo Nix breaks a play down.
Q3 — Nix escapes right, Pat Bryant loops back. Adam Trautman would’ve ran right into Bryant. But Trautman clearly slows up to create a lane, and Bryant hauls in a 16-yard first down. pic.twitter.com/pwaKeGplUo
— Luca Evans (@bylucaevans) December 5, 2025
“We talk about where your landmarks are, and if you’re deep in a progression, where you need to end up on a scramble drill – if it’s to your side, if it’s away from your side, if you’re shallow, where you need to go, and how you fit into that so we create proper spacing,” Trautman said Monday. “And that’s why guys end up wide open. Because we understand that, and we play off of each other.
“So, it’s definitely a part of (Bo’s) game that’s got some magic to it,” Trautman said. “And it’s gotten us out of a lot of bad situations, or pressure situations.”
It’s also gotten them into bad situations. Nix frequently prefers to escape the pocket when he feels edge pressure rather than step up inside it, and happy feet led to one of the worst two-game stretches of his career against the Texans and Raiders in early November. On the season, the second-year quarterback only averages 5.2 yards per attempt when throwing on the run despite heavy volume — lower than league average, according to Next Gen Stats.
That’s largely because Nix often pulls the escape valve to avoid sacks, and often throws balls away while on the move. As many plays as he creates, he’s also been prone to leaving plays on the table before routes actually develop.
“Everybody wants to always question it,” Nix said in mid-November, asked on evaluating his sack avoidance. “You can overthink it, and that just takes away from playing the game and playing the position. We’re all here for a reason. We all rely on our instincts. For me, it’s just continuing to do that and making the next best play.”
Nix’s best two-game stretch of the season has come after that Houston-Vegas back-to-back, perhaps not coincidentally. A flush-it pick against the Commanders is the only play marring performances against Kansas City and Washington, as Nix threw for 616 yards combined. Payton and the Broncos drew up some under-center, designed movement to get Nix going early, and the second-year quarterback found a clear balance between chaos and rhythm: take a surgical two-minute drill of stationary strikes to end the first half against Washington before that Sutton miracle.
“Move when you have to, keep your feet right when you don’t have to,” Lombardi said Thursday. “And I think he’s done a really good job of that, especially the last two games. I’ve thought he’s played real well as far as staying in the pocket, keeping your base when the play calls for that, and then moving when you have to.”
Nix called them “battleship decisions,” in mid-November.
Had he been questioning those instincts, he was asked then?
“No,” Nix replied, pursing his lips.
And these Broncos don’t want him to, for better or worse.
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