How Broncos assistant Davis Webb tailored his teaching and coaching approach to expedite rookie QB Bo Nix’s ascendance

Bo Nix extended the ball on a play-fake, pulled it back into his gut and hesitated.

Green Bay edge rusher Lucas Van Ness was right in his face, free off Nix’s left side, and Nix double-clutched before throwing the ball into the turf in front of tight end Adam Trautman at Empower Field on Aug. 18.

Not pretty, but not a calamity.

He shot a glance to the sideline, where quarterbacks coach Davis Webb made a motion with his hand.

This was going to be revisited.

Three days later, after Nix had been named the first Broncos rookie starting quarterback since John Elway, he still had the lone incompletion of his outing against the Packers on his mind.

“I completely botched one play that I needed to fix and we fixed that a lot today — over the last few days,” Nix told reporters then. “We had a whole drill that Davis set up just because of the play that I messed up. But that’s good because that means you won’t mess it up again.

“That’s one where every time it’s called from here on out, I will always think about that one time I messed it up.”

The next snap, Nix threw a third-and-9 strike to Tim Patrick for 14 yards. He finished the drive with a 2-yard scoring pass to Patrick a few plays later.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Webb says Nix overstated how bad the mistake was. But he didn’t overstate the intentionality in addressing it.

“It wasn’t that bad of a miss. We converted the next play to Tim,” Webb told The Denver Post. “It wasn’t too bad, but I definitely knew it was going to come back up later in the year at some point, whether it be that style of play, different formation, whatever.

“But I wanted to hammer it home and also have some fun with it with the vets.”

Here is the Broncos quarterback position, present and future, in a nutshell as they open the 2024 regular season with Nix at the helm.

The 24-year-old has shown aptitude, but there are mistakes, bumps in the road and corrections ahead. So Webb is leveraging everything at his disposal to try to smooth the road as much as possible, from Nix’s appetite for learning to his own experiences as a player to those of fellow Denver quarterbacks Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson.

“He’s going to know this first”

When the Broncos drafted Nix No. 12 overall this spring, Webb caught a ride on the charter jet to Alabama to pick the quarterback and his family up.

After the introductory whirlwind, Nix had a couple of weeks before rookie minicamp.

Webb had an idea. He thought back to competing with Baker Mayfield and Patrick Mahomes for starting jobs in college. To trying to find his way in the NFL. Backing up Eli Manning and Josh Allen. Swimming in all of the stuff that comes with being a quarterback, even a reserve, at the highest level.

Then he started writing.

“I sent him a 15-page outline of what I wish I knew then and what I know now,” Webb said. “And then a few different schedules from Eli or from Josh or from Pat, just kind of like their daily schedules in the offseason and a couple of ideas just to try to help. I mean, I didn’t get that information and there’s a lot of things I wish I got earlier in my career that I didn’t get. I was going to make sure (he) was not going to have to go through some of the things I had to go through or some teammates of mine or even Zach and ‘Stiddy.’

“We all have some story about what we wish. And I was like, ‘Let’s knock that out right now.’ It’s the first thing we’re ever going to give him, so he’s going to know this first.”

It started with quotes and thoughts Webb has collected over the years.

“About just handling the noise, handling the pressure and handling being yourself and not changing over time,” Webb said. “Two of my friends, Josh Allen and Pat Mahomes, have never changed. They could easily, but they’re the same guys. Now, your life is going to update a little bit and who you are as a person needs to update, too, but in a good way. I think we have that with Bo.”

Nix’s teammates seem to agree. Right tackle Mike McGlinchey said Nix has been “authentically himself” since he arrived in Denver. Others speak in similarly glowing terms about Nix’s presence, calm nature and maturity. That doesn’t guarantee wins, but it’s a baseline that’s essentially required for any prospect of sustained success at the position.

“It’s cool to see,” said reserve offensive lineman Alex Forsyth, who was Nix’s teammate at Oregon in 2022. “I really enjoyed being his teammate at Oregon and really enjoy being his teammate now. It’s been good to kind of see your guys that you played with in college grow and take that next step. It’s been fun to watch.”

Learning the pupil

None of that does much good if the player can’t learn the playbook or execute the details.

During the draft process, Webb took it upon himself to not just figure out how well each of the quarterbacks in the 2024 class could learn, but also how they learned.

“During the interviews and privates with Sean, (general manager) George (Paton), (player personnel executive) Cody (Rager) and some of the scouts, you kind of had a feel for what you’re trying to quiz them on and test them on, but I would kind of give four or five different ways of learning just to see which way they picked up on it. Then I’d make a mental note of that.

“‘These are the ones they missed, alright it was this style of learning. These are the ones they hit, it was that style of learning.’ Then just used that to get ready for whoever it was that was going to come here to adjust my meeting style to that.”

Nix, like a lot of quarterbacks, is a visual learner. He likes grinding on the playbook, but seeing is critical. Seeing becomes believing and believing becomes the foundation to build on.

“Bo, ‘Stiddy,’ Zach, if I say a play, they’ll tell you the (video) clip it was for,” Webb said. “If you can tie in visual learning to making it fun, whether that be power points or trivia — big trivia room, we are — and just continue to quiz and walk through and build a routine, consistently, on every play, that’s been very good for him.”

Payton’s told the story several times about how much playbook information Nix retained from one night of studying in March when the Broncos were in Oregon to work him out after his pro day.

“That carries out every day,” Webb says now. “I send him things to work on every day when we leave here and he comes back the next day and he dominates it and owns it. That’s encouraging and that makes you want to coach harder for a player that’s doing the extra work.”

A little help from my friends

The Broncos staged what was billed as a three-man quarterback battle this summer.

Intentionally or not, though, the complexion of the group ended up serving another purpose.

Nix may not have a Hall of Famer or even a long-time starter to learn from like Jordan Love did with Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay or Mahomes with Alex Smith in Kansas City.

What he does have is a trio who have combined to experience a lot of NFL ups and downs.

Wilson, the No. 2 overall selection in 2021, knows the white-hot spotlight of being a please-save-the-franchise pick and knows what it’s like to fail in that glare.

Stidham shares an alma mater with Nix, hosted him on a recruiting visit and, of course, learned a thing or two playing behind Tom Brady in New England earlier in his career.

Then there’s Webb himself — “Almost like the wily veteran quarterback that’s in the room,” as Payton described him this summer — who’s spent his entire playing career around high-caliber quarterbacks and who developed a reputation as a terrific teacher even while he was still playing.

In Webb’s ideal world, they provide something like armor for Nix. As a collective, he says, they can help steel the rookie for what’s coming beginning Sunday at Seattle even if they can’t walk the path for him.

“Everyone has a first game,” Webb said. “One of the first things we talked about when he came here was, who has the most interceptions in their rookie year?”

Peyton Manning with 28, of course.

“Alright, well he’s one of the best ever,” the 29-year-old assistant continued. “Like, it’s going to be OK. In today’s world, it’s a little bit different. Zach can attest to it, especially with the New York media it can be a little bit tougher. But it’s great to have a room full of guys that all have different experiences because we’re all force-feeding Bo our experiences so hopefully that way he doesn’t have to go through some of the crap that we went through.”

That was the real point of the drill Webb made up in the middle of training camp. There’s the actual technique fix and there’s also the broader philosophy. You made a mistake. Who cares? We’ll fix it. There’s more coming, so keep bouncing back and then keep expecting to be held accountable — and probably laughed at a little bit — back in the comfort of the quarterback room.

This is Webb’s rookie curriculum for Nix. It’s not scattershot. It’s been plotted and refined since before the draft and put into place over the past four-plus months. Now the first test for Nix is here.

Webb sees it more as a test for the whole group.

“Me, ‘Stiddy’ and Zach have been trying to find as many different ways as we can to double down on things that we wish we had growing up through being a rookie or a second-year guy,” he said. “It’s easy looking back now kind of like, ‘Oh man, I wish I knew back then.’

“So we’re trying to expedite a lot of that process for Bo right now.”

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NFL First-round rookie QBs (since 2018)

Instant success is uncommon among rookie quarterbacks in the NFL. The last time a first-round rookie won a season opener was back in 2018, when Sam Darnold led the New York Jets to a 48-17 win in Detroit. Here’s a look at each first-round QB since then:

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