After Denver defeated the Las Vegas Raiders 34-18 on Sunday, Broncos coach Sean Payton compared his quarterback to Ferris Bueller, but rookie Bo Nix showed up to his postgame press conference wearing a John Elway jersey after helping deliver the NFL team’s third straight victory.
In his fifth NFL game, the former Auburn quarterback completed 19-of-27 passes for 206 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions and ran eight times for 9 yards and one touchdown as Denver improved to 3-2.
But what happened after one TD got away drew attention after the contest.
The Broncos put the game away with three touchdowns in a four-possession span in the second half. That’s when Nix could have told the Raiders: “You’re still here? It’s over. Go home.”
But that’s not what led to the Ferris Bueller comparison.
On the one series that didn’t end in a touchdown, Nix couldn’t quite connect with wide receiver Troy Franklin in the end zone on a third-and-3 snap from the Las Vegas 45, and it was followed by an animated exchange between the coach and the quarterback on the sideline.
“He turned and looked at me and said, ‘I love you,’” Nix said about the incident, “and I turned and looked at him and said, ‘I love you’ back.”
Payton wouldn’t divulge what was said.
“It’s part of the deal,” Payton said when asked about the conversation. “Listen, there’s still a little bit of Ferris Bueller in this player that we got to get rid of. All right? Talking about Bo, and I love him to death. And so, sometimes it’s my love language.”
Asked what he meant by comparing Nix to the title character in the 1986 movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” Payton said: “Ferris was kind of quirky, doing his own thing once in a while. I don’t know. Did you watch the movie? Have you ever seen it? He’s still got a little Ferris Bueller in him. I mean he’s got some.”
A reporter called out “Mischievous.”
“Not that,” Payton responded. “Maybe a little bit kind of subtly. Look, there’re times where you send something in, and I don’t want it flipped and then it gets flipped. And so it’s all good. He works his tail off. And I am that way, and so it just is what it is.”
Nix explained the flipped remark.
“(Payton) wanted it to the boundary,” Nix said. “And we just kind of got confused in the huddle, and so I tried to get things right. We ended up having it, had a chance. I overthrew it, but that’s part of the game sometimes with the huddle operation. You just got to make the most of it with the guys with the play-clock moving.”
Nix tossed a 4-yard touchdown pass to running back Jaleel McLaughlin as Denver took a 20-10 lead with 6:54 remaining in the third quarter, stuck the football over the goal line for a 1-yard touchdown run as the Broncos went up 27-10 with 10:12 left in the game and threw a 9-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Josh Reynolds as Denver’s advantage grew to 34-10 with 8:14 to go.
“We start with lead your team to wins and lead your team to the end zone, and I thought he did a good job of that,” Payton said of Nix’s game. “He made some really good plays with his feet. He’s hard to sack. And then you worry about the matchup with (Raiders defensive end Maxx) Crosby. There’s a lot going on when he’s coming off the bus, and then the protections, but I thought he played well.”
The Broncos took advantage of good field position on all three touchdown drives. The first began at the 50-yard line after a 38-yard punt return by wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr. The second started at the Denver 42-yard line after a 16-yard punt return by Mims. The third opened at the Las Vegas 39 after cornerback Patrick Surtain II’s second interception of the game.
“We got short fields,” Nix said. “… We just took what we had, and we made the most of our opportunity there.”
Surtain had sparked the Broncos’ comeback from a 10-0 first-quarter deficit by returning an interception 100 yards for a touchdown as Denver tied the score at 10-10 with 8:43 left in the first half.
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“He made a real good play,” Payton said. “The significance of the play is it’s a 10-point play because they’re probably, in a minimum, going to kick a field goal from where it happened at, so that was a huge play for us.”
On Sunday, the Broncos honored Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024 inductee Randy Gradishar, inducted Steve Foley and Riley Odoms into their Ring of Fame and wore throwback uniforms like those of the 1977 Super Bowl team.
Elway didn’t arrive in Denver until 1983, and he led the Broncos to five Super Bowls and two NFL championships. Nix said he took the opportunity of throwback weekend to recognize the franchise’s greatest player and his father, Patrick Nix, a former Auburn QB who coached him at Scottsboro and Pinson Valley High schools.
“Growing up, he was my dad’s favorite quarterback,” Nix said. “And being a Bronco now with everything he’s done to lay this foundation for the guys that come after him and play quarterback at a high level. With him being my dad’s favorite player, it’s just two guys who have put me in a situation to go out there and succeed, and so it was a great day to kind of pay tribute to those that came before you. I had it in the closet and wanted to put it to use.”
In his first AFC West game, Nix helped Denver break an eight-game losing streak to Las Vegas. The Broncos hadn’t beaten the Raiders since they moved from Oakland. Denver’s most recent victory was a 16-15 win on Dec. 29, 2019.
“You could definitely tell during the game the intensity,” Nix said of division play. “It was very high. Both teams were playing hard. It was a physical football game going back and forth there at the beginning. And then I thought our crowd kind of helped us in the second half. They were huge. That’s what I was expecting coming here. That was outstanding, and it’s huge when you can get a homefield advantage like that. I think it does affect the other team.”
In their next game, the Broncos play the Los Angeles Chargers at 3:05 p.m. CDT Oct. 13 at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver in another AFC West contest.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
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