Bronco notes: Nix vs. QB great Round II

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — For the second consecutive week, Bo Nix is matched up against a future Hall of Fame quarterback.

The way Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson played last week, the sculptors can start molding his bust. The opposing quarterback this week, Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, doesn’t have to throw one more pass to gain future induction into football immortality.

It didn’t work out for Bo and the Broncos last week as they were drubbed, 41-10 by Lamar and the Ravens. For redemption this week, they have the 8-0, back-to-back Super Bowl champion Chiefs, who by the way have taken the AFC West Division, of which the Broncos are a member, eight straight years.

“I love it. I feel like this is the epitome of why you want to play in the NFL,’’ Nix said Wednesday at his weekly quarterback press conference from inside the team’s headquarters’ lobby due to the snow and cold. “You want to play against these defenses, you want to play against these legendary coaches, you want to play against Hall of Fame quarterbacks. It’s the best.

“When you get to play in this kind of matchup it’s much better than playing against a team you know you have the advantage over. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be tough. I think the mindset is you want to play in these big games, you want to play in the tough ones because if they were all easy, anybody could do it.”

Mahomes is not putting up nearly the elite-level stats the past two years as he did earlier in his career. But he’s winning at an even greater clip than he ever has.

“Everybody’s trying to match him,’’ Nix said. “Everybody’s trying to catch up, I feel like.’’

When the Broncos drafted Nix in the first round last April and then two days later moved up in the fourth round to take his favorite college receiver Troy Franklin, the thinking was the Broncos might have the best connection since Peyton and Demaryius.

Franklin caught 142 passes from Nix the previous two years at Oregon, with 23 going for touchdowns.

Yet so far with the Broncos, Franklin has dropped two long passes from Nix and last week Nix overthrew a wide-open Franklin that would have been a touchdown on a fourth-down play.

“With me and him right now it’s a level of overthinking it,’’ Nix said. “The pressure and ambition of we’ve already done it, we’ve got to do it again, it should be easy for us — and that’s not the case. You’re going against different guys, you’re playing in a different system, you’re thinking a little bit too much.

“But I’m also not going to make excuses. We’ve got to hit ‘em when they’re open. We practice well, we do a good job of making sure we get the reps in practice and I think it’s only a matter of time before the explosives and the big ones are being hit again … I just think we have to stop overthinking it.”

The training program works. Returning from injury stints to practice Wednesday were starting safety P.J. Locke, starting center Luke Wattenberg and backup outside linebacker Drew Sanders.

Receiver Josh Reynolds, however, did not return from injured reserve as he was eligible to.

Locke missed the past two weeks with a left thumb injury but he practiced in full Wednesday. Plan on him starting Sunday at Kansas City. Wattenberg had been on IR the past four weeks with a high ankle sprain. He was listed as a limited participant in practice. It will be either Wattenberg or Alex Forsyth who will be tasked with blocking Chris Jones on Sunday.

Sanders had been on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list since tearing his Achilles during the team’s offseason conditioning program in mid-April. He has started his 21-day practice window to return.

Backup safety Dellarin Turner-Yell is in week 2 of his 21-day practice window.

Reynolds was scheduled to return from his fractured finger injury Wednesday, but he was also a victim in a drive-by shooting during the early morning hours of Oct. 18. Two people have been charged on multiple counts of first-degree attempted murder. Reynolds was admitted to a Denver hospital but was not seriously hurt in the shooting and released the same day. However, the Broncos want him to take some extra time to deal with the traumatic incident.

Courtland Sutton is doing his part. With 499 receiving yards, he needs just one more hash mark to attain one half of a $500,000 incentive his agent Jacob Presser and the team negotiated as part of a $1.7 million total incentive package right before training camp.

The catch is the other half of his incentive.

Sutton needs 500 receiving yards AND the Broncos have to improve on their 2023 season in either points scored or average yards per pass play for him to get the extra half-mil.

And this is where Sutton needs a little more help. Last year’s Broncos with veterans Russell Wilson and Jarrett Stidham at quarterback averaged 21.0 points and 191.9 passing yards per game.

This year’s team with the rookie Nix running and throwing and catching is averaging 20.3 points and 187.1 passing yards per game. The good news is the Broncos’ offense is improving as Nix gets more settled and raises his game incrementally seemingly each week.

Sutton is earning $13.47 million without the added incentives this year, making him the league’s  28th-highest paid receiver. He’s been performing better than that.