Nik Bonitto began working with pass-rush guru Javon Gopie in the spring of 2020, just as COVID shut down the world.
They were in Florida, hopping from park to park and then jumping fences in search of an open patch of grass. They found it at St. John XXIII Catholic Church in Miramar. It was more loose rock than anything. But it was something.
Bonitto was heading into his third year as an edge rusher at Oklahoma, and he was eager, but Gopie was baffled as he watched him run through drills.
Bro, Gopie recalled thinking, this dude does not move full speed. Nothing he does is full speed.
Bonitto always had an innate ability to get to quarterbacks. He came to Oklahoma as a four-star gem. But there was some immaturity, as former OU linebackers coach Brian Odom put it.
Until those first couple of months, when Bonitto flipped a switch.
Once a week in Miramar, Gopie would stand four yards away and bring up a couple of players at a time from a core group of trainees. Gopie would stick his hand out and twitch his knee, the sign to go. Whoever burst out of their stance first and slapped his palm won the rep.
Dallas Turner, a 2024 first-round pick, was there. So was Shemar Stewart, the No. 17 pick in 2025.
Nobody ever beat Bonitto.
“He won every single time,” Gopie said. “Every day, every single time. It wasn’t even a question.”
Seven years ago, Bonitto was a redshirt afterthought at Oklahoma who could have been “just another freshman,” as Odom said. Seven years and a second-team All-Pro nod with the Broncos later, those same coaches marvel at one of the more incredible year-over-year ascents they’ve seen. The kid who once weighed 210 pounds soaking wet is now a shade under 250. The kid who had raw speed is now a whirling blend of power and finesse.
And the man who once doubted his own frame has adopted a new moniker.
“I always joke around — I’m, like, the top dog in there,” Bonitto told The Denver Post in July. “And then I was like, ‘You know what? Cool name would be Bloodhound.’
“I kinda just get on ’em about that,” Bonitto said. “Just trying to … push everybody, work the hardest in there.”
Nik Bonitto (15) of the Denver Broncos narrowly misses a sack as Mac Jones (10) of the San Francisco 49ers moves during the first quarter at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Nik Bonitto (15) of the Denver Broncos narrowly misses a sack as Mac Jones (10) of the San Francisco 49ers moves during the first quarter at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Could anyone, a few years ago, have expected this? Bonitto, the hardest worker in the room? Bonitto, rounding into one of the great edge rushers in the NFL? Bonitto, the “Bloodhound,” racking up 13.5 sacks at age 24 and hunting for more?
“No,” Odom responded. “Not at all.
“But that’s what makes this story so unique.”
Under the old regime at Oklahoma and defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, staff sometimes referred to a player as an “anti-fatigue guy” — someone who struggled to push through the point of fatigue.
Bonitto was an anti-fatigue guy.
One day in their freshman year at Oklahoma, Bonitto and teammate Delarrin Turner-Yell were running through conditioning drills. A strength coach told Turner-Yell, he remembered, that they’d dole out additional punishment if they caught someone putting their hands on their hips.
At one point, Bonitto put his hands on his hips. He was tired. So Turner-Yell walked past and slapped Bonitto’s arms down.
“He was the type of guy that’s like, ‘Get me to Saturday, I’ll make my plays and we’ll go from there,'” recalled Turner-Yell, now Bonitto’s close friend and teammate in Denver. “Didn’t even care about practice during the week.”
After Bonitto redshirted his freshman year, a new defensive staff came in under Grinch in 2019. They didn’t know much about Bonitto. They knew he was highly recruited. They expected him to flash.
“The first, maybe, impression,” Odom said, “it wasn’t good.”
In Bonitto’s first season under the new regime, Grinch dropped him into coverage on over a quarter of his snaps to protect his body. He weighed 225 then, and staff felt he lacked the strength to mash for a full game against 300-pound linemen.
“The big thing for him was, how long do you fight to stay same as?” Grinch said. “How long do you fight to simply be the athlete that runs around people?”
So Bonitto fought to change. Oklahoma staff, sensing Turner-Yell could pull something from him, assigned the two as weight-room partners. Then-OLBs coach Jamar Cain, now Denver’s defensive-line coach, had plenty of “tough conversations” with Bonitto, as Grinch put it. And Bonitto sought out Gopie.
The biggest issue, Gopie sensed, was Bonitto’s confidence. His frame sometimes held him back. It also gave him the flexibility to plant and change direction in the tiniest of split-second windows, unimaginable for most behemoths at his position. He needed, as Gopie reflected, to believe what he did worked.
Bonitto believed it in that parking lot back in Florida.
“It did take him some time to figure out what he did best,” Gopie said. “But, man, I’ll tell you — once he did, the rest is history.”
Brock Purdy #15 of the Iowa State Cyclones carries the ball against Nik Bonitto #11 of the Oklahoma Sooners in the first half of the 2020 Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship football game at AT&T Stadium on December 19, 2020, in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Brock Purdy #15 of the Iowa State Cyclones carries the ball against Nik Bonitto #11 of the Oklahoma Sooners in the first half of the 2020 Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship football game at AT&T Stadium on December 19, 2020, in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Sometimes, the now-25-year-old Bonitto will go back and watch tape of his early days at Oklahoma.
“I be looking at him like, he’s terrible,” Bonitto smiled while sitting on a bench in July.
“But I also like that guy, and I appreciated him,” he continued, a few words later. “Just because he kinda has helped me through my time in the NFL, too.”
Bonitto increased his pressures every single year he was at Oklahoma, and has increased his pressures every single year as a Bronco, culminating in last season’s All-Pro leap in Year 3.
Entering a contract year, Bonitto’s poised to become one of the highest-paid pass-rushers in the league. The money, though, is shoved to the back of his mind. As more attention swung his way last year, he started getting chipped more frequently by bodies flashing out of the backfield. He says he left plays on the field in 2024, so he spent his offseason watching tape of peers like the Giants’ Brian Burns, the Texans’ Will Anderson Jr., and the Steelers’ TJ Watt, studying how they attacked chip-blocks.
Everyone — from Turner-Yell to defensive coordinator Vance Joseph to Broncos edge Jonathon Cooper — suggests Bonitto hasn’t approached his ceiling. His fourth season as a Bronco now brings a confluence of factors. He’s still explosive. He’s the heaviest and strongest that Gopie, or EXOS trainer Rich Pruett, has seen him. And he’s learning to play chess.
This offseason, a few years after St. John’s, brought another breakthrough: finesse. Bonitto and Gopie spent a heap of time dissecting his successful initial rushes and then drilling subsequent countermoves that look the same to an offensive lineman in their approach. Set up what looks like a speed-rush, then pivot to a different angle.
Nik Bonitto (15) of the Denver Broncos watches the action against the San Francisco 49ers during the third quarter at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Nik Bonitto (15) of the Denver Broncos watches the action against the San Francisco 49ers during the third quarter at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
“I think we’ll see a lot of spinning out of him this year, a lot of inside moves,” Gopie said. “And then from there, once he starts to win inside — it’s going to be very spooky. Because when somebody like him keeps you off balance, it’s not gon’ be fair.”
Bonitto wants to keep “stacking years,” as he put it. A long way, now, from the parking lot.
“We still haven’t seen the best of Nik Bonitto yet,” Gopie said.
Top-producing NFL outside linebackers, 2024
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Name Team Pressures Hits Sacks
Micah Parsons Dallas 46 23 12
Jonathan Greenard Minnesota 42 22 12
Nik Bonitto Broncos 36 24 13.5
Brian Burns N.Y. Giants 34 18 8.5
Jared Verse L.A. Rams 33 18 4.5
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