Bo Nix didn't get to the AFC Championship Game during his first NFL postseason run, falling short in the Wild Card Round against the Buffalo Bills. Jayden Daniels made the NFC Championship, and he did something else Nix didn't in 2024: win the Offensive Rookie of the Year award.
Daniels was announced the winner on Thursday. That's fine.
Nix still has the belief of the local media in Denver that he's focused on what's important -- winning it all. 104.3 The Fan's Will Petersen celebrated Nix and Sean Payton, who didn't win any NFL regular season awards either.
"Both Bo Nix and Sean Payton don’t do this for individual awards, they’re chasing a Lombardi Trophy. Hopefully, a Super Bowl will come one day for the duo, and that’d be sweeter than Offensive Rookie of the Year or Coach of the Year," Petersen wrote.
While individual awards are nice, no one remembers the ringless award winners for anything but their ringless-ness. Nix's legacy will be defined by whether or not he could follow in Peyton Manning and John Elway's footsteps.
The early returns are promising.
Per AL.com's Mark Inabinett, "Nix completed 18 passes in a row to set an NFL rookie record for the most consecutive completions from the start of a game (in records that date to 1978), finished 26-of-29 to set a Denver single-game record for completion rate at 89.7 percent (for players with at least 20 passes) and an NFL rookie single-game record (for players with at least 25 passes)" against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 18.
That game was largely meaningless to the Chiefs, who were playing mostly reserves, and Nix was very far from perfect against the Bills. Still, Nix built a winning foundation during his rookie season, and it's not been ignored.