Phillip Lindsay has seen a lot of Broncos football in his life. Growing up in Denver, he was a kid during Elway’s back-to-back run in the late 1990s, he saw what Peyton Manning did for the team in the early 2010s, and he had a front-row seat to the quarterback carousel after Manning’s retirement as he was lined up in the backfield next to six different starters over his three years.
He knows so much about Broncos quarterbacks, he even started a game as Denver’s quarterback in 2020. Remember when every quarterback on the roster was in COVID protocols, forcing the former Pro Bowler to start the game against Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints under center for the orange and blue? He didn’t throw a pass in that game, but was officially labeled as the starter after he took the first handful of snaps as the Wildcat quarterback.
Strange times.
On “The Drive” on Monday, Lindsay made a bold statement about the current state of the Broncos, and whether team is more Bo Nix’s team or Sean Payton’s team.
“Do I want Bo Nix to take it over? Heck yes. Will he? Soon. But right now, this is not Bo Nix’s team just yet,” Lindsay said. “He’s on the verge of having it be his team once the season starts. Couple games go by and now it’s like okay, you’re the man. This is still Sean’s team.”
Remember, Nix is only entering the second year of his young career and has plenty of time to continue to blossom and take over the team. Despite starting 61 games at quarterback in college for both Auburn and Oregon — which was a record for a year until Dillon Gabriel reset it at the end of last season — there are still plenty of things for the 25-year-old to learn and experience before the Broncos can truly be his team.
“Once Bo figures out Sean completely, once Bo knows the whole entire playbook … once Bo Nix gets with Evan Engram, once Bo Nix has that run game and he’s able to have success, once he starts to change plays consistently, once he starts to talk to his teammates during the game … when you see him really start to communicate every single play, that’s when you know that it’s Bo’s team. That’s when you know that he has the confidence and he doesn’t need Sean to tell him a play,” Lindsay said.
Sean Payton is known for having one of the deepest offensive playbooks in the history of the NFL, with some of the most confusing calls in the game. Payton started to open it up later in the year last season as his young quarterback got more experience under his belt. That took lots of time, as it took Nix a fair amount of time to get used to the playbook and how to deliver the call to the rest of the offense.
watch the huddle pic.twitter.com/ZDWAk8gKbt
— Nate Tice (@Nate_Tice) September 15, 2024
The combination of Nix doing a double-take with his call sheet and the confused reaction from Greg Dulcich show the growing pains that Nix went through at the start of his rookie campaign. However, he showed that those growing pains were necessary.
“Once Bo Nix gets more games under his belt, once Bo Nix finds ways to win and change plays … that’s when it becomes your team. I’m ready to give him the keys, but it’s Sean, and I don’t believe Sean’s ready,” Lindsay said.
Nix recently said that part of his growth into year two is ‘not thinking’ about the process of the play at the line of scrimmage, and instead focusing more on what the defense is doing so he knows what to expect when the ball is snapped. Improving his mental game is the next step to him becoming a top quarterback in the NFL, and the young signal caller seems prepared to take on that challenge.
Listen to “The Drive” with Zach Bye and Phillip Lindsay on weekdays from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. MDT on 104.3 The Fan.