Mike McGlinchey’s “a-ha” moment is vintage offensive lineman.
He’s standing on the Broncos practice field in late August discussing Bo Nix. He’s not talking about a finished product. The rookie quarterback has a long way to go. A lot to learn.
One week out from his regular-season debut, the list of unknowns about Nix is much longer than the knowns.
But McGlinchey and other Broncos veterans know this: They’re ready to see what it looks like with Nix at the helm. They trust him.
That alone doesn’t guarantee early success for the No. 12 overall pick, who on Sept. 8 in Seattle will become the first rookie to start at quarterback for this franchise in a season opener since John Elway in 1983. But it’s no small thing, either.
For McGlinchey, the lightbulb didn’t go off on that 23-yard dart Nix threw to Courtland Sutton in the preseason game against Green Bay. Or the calmness with which he converted third downs with his legs against Indianapolis and then over the middle to Tim Patrick with his arm.
Instead, it came earlier, on a training camp day when Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph decided to heat up the rookie and his offense with a blitz.
Nix sensed it, adjusted the protection, and went about his business.
Fans watching from the berm probably didn’t even notice. But for McGlinchey, it stamped a major impression.
“College quarterbacks don’t necessarily have to deal with that. They don’t have to deal with structure,” McGlinchey told The Denver Post. “Especially in training camp with our defense, Vance likes to bring a lot of different stuff. To be able to get us into a full slide when nobody even really saw what the defense was doing but he saw the rotation of the safeties and said, ‘OK, I know where the pressure is coming from,’ or getting the ball out or knowing exactly where his hot read is?
“That’s the stuff that’s really advanced for him and has really come along quickly.”
To put it plainly, the big right tackle said, “Guys in his position are usually too scared to do that or don’t have the knowledge to do it.”
This is how Nix won the starting quarterback job and won the respect of the Denver locker room, too.
Calm in the Storm
Alex Singleton last shared a team with a rookie quarterback in 2020.
His second year in Philadelphia, the Eagles drafted Jalen Hurts in the second round, No. 52 overall.
Unlike Nix, Hurts didn’t start right away. He appeared sporadically during his rookie season and then got the final four games before bursting onto the scene in 2021.
Singleton, though, sees similarities.
There’s the biographical, of course. Hurts started his career in the SEC but transferred after three seasons, just like Nix. He put up prodigious numbers at Oklahoma in one year as Nix did at Oregon over two. Hurts finished college as runner-up in the Heisman Trophy voting to Joe Burrow, the eventual No. 1 pick. Nix finished third behind Jayden Daniels, the No. 2 pick, and Michael Penix Jr.
In the pre-draft process, as much of the talk around Hurts was about what he didn’t or couldn’t do as it was about what he could. Can he process? Does he have enough arm? He’s not that accurate. Different set of questions around Nix, but similar discourse.
As soon as Hurts got to Philadelphia, though, none of that mattered. Singleton said it’s been similar with Nix this summer.
“I saw it with Jalen Hurts, that same kind of fire,” Singleton told The Post. “I would say they have a lot of similarities in that nothing really seems too big for them. They’re like the calm-in-the-storm kind of guys.
“I think there’s a lot of similarities between those two.”
The Broncos, of course, would gladly take an opening stanza to Nix’s career that looks like Hurts’.
Up and down training camp, at the podium and in private conversations and with pretty much anybody who’s seen Nix operate, that’s the consensus. Not that it’s going to be glorious right away, but that the 24-year-old is built to handle the interim no matter how long it lasts.
McGlinchey’s a protector by nature. It’s a personality trait and it’s also literally his job. But his new quarterback? Kid gloves or hover-teammating? Not a chance.
“I don’t think he needs it at all,” McGlinchey said. “He’s been a professional since the day he got here and his ability to focus on what’s important and what he needs to accomplish and not doing too much.”
Weight of the world
Singleton had a simple message for Nix the day Payton named him starting quarterback. Basically: We’ve got your back.
“I told him congrats, but it’s our job to help him,” Singleton said. “It’s not Bo Nix and the Denver Broncos. It’s the Denver Broncos.”
He points to an example who happens to now share a meeting room with Nix. Back when Zach Wilson was the No. 2 overall pick by the New York Jets in 2021, the pressure clearly stacked up as fast as the early failures did. What resulted was a wall Wilson could never break through.
“You can’t think the weight of the world is on your shoulders,” Singleton said. “Obviously in this league and at that position, it’s like, ‘Hey, you. Right now.’ I think Zach when he first got here was relieved to not have that pressure. You can see it. It kills guys. And he’s been playing so much better the last few weeks than he did because it’s so much when people put everything on you.”
It’s one thing to know that, but another to actually stave it off. This is a quarterback-driven league and the spotlight is intense.
Nix’s preferred method of handling it is to focus on himself and his process.
“You see it in an afternoon walkthrough where we’re just in shorts and he’s getting pissed at himself because he stumbled over the play call or, ‘Hey Joe (Lombardi), I need it again,’” McGlinchey said. “Or, ‘Hey, I missed that.’ He takes a lot of pride in not doing that again. I think that’s really cool. He has a lot of accountability. He’s able to laugh at himself.
“He’s able to joke around and he plays with that confidence that, ‘I’m going to do this and I know how to do it’ and he just lets it rip.”
That’s where Javonte Williams became a believer. The Payton playbook is no joke,
“Some of them plays be like five, six seconds long,” Williams said. “For him to remember that that junk’s just crazy for real. Just the way he carries himself, every day, pro. You can tell he’s been ready for this moment for a long time and now that he’s finally in these shoes, he’s just taken a hold of it and he’s going with the flow.”
Authenticity himself
It’s that, McGlinchey says, that has impressed him maybe more than anything about Nix. His ability to step in and fit in. Assume command without being too assuming or too commanding.
Nix thinks about this a lot, but in some ways, he also doesn’t think about it all.
He knows, for example, that he can’t step in and lead here exactly like he led Year 2 in Oregon when it was very much his team. This is a group with an All-Pro cornerback and several veteran offensive linemen. Even with a mass exodus of former captains this offseason, a rookie’s not walking into the locker room and barking orders from Day 1. But a quarterback can’t tiptoe, either. That’s not how it works.
So how did he handle it?
“You’ve got to make sure that you have a good feel. You’ve got to make sure that you’re in line before you try to check everybody else,” Nix told The Post midway through camp. “There’s only a small room for a rookie having that voice, especially early like in training camp. We’re fortunate to have older leadership and experience on the team to where they’re handling that really well and they’ve kind of let me figure it out on my own.
“Then, as I’m ready, challenge guys and encourage guys and things like that. There’s definitely a time and a place. Someone told me a long time ago, ‘When leadership is needed, provide it.’”
On most plays in the offensive huddle, Nix is joined by wide receiver Courtland Sutton, McGlinchey, Quinn Meinerz, Ben Powers and Garett Bolles. Those four guys have each played in the league for years, they all make more than $13 million per year, and they all have distinct personalities and leadership styles.
“So Bo knows that he can be comfortable. He can be himself,” McGlinchey said. “He doesn’t have to press. He doesn’t have to pretend to do something just because he’s the quarterback.
“I think the best thing Bo’s done so far is he’s come in and he’s been authentically himself. He’s let that take over. The confidence he’s gained from just being able to do that has then allowed the traits of him as a leader to just kind of rise to the top.
“Everybody’s started to trust that and see it every day and it’s been awesome.”
This has all been a big learning process for Nix, and it’s been the same for his teammates. There’s much more to come for everybody, beginning Week 1 with a tough test on the road. What’s beyond, nobody knows for sure. The opening months with a rookie quarterback, though, have been about as good as McGlinchey could have asked for.
“I don’t know if it was all the way there in OTAs,” McGlinchey said. “He showed who he was in OTAs, he showed the kind of competitiveness and character he had, which everybody fell in love with.
“And then all of a sudden his game started ramping up really, really fast here and he’s done a great job.”
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Originally Published: August 30, 2024 at 9:45 a.m.
