Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix on June 16 spoke about his ankle injury for the first time since last season.
Nix broke a bone in his ankle on the third-to-last play of the Broncos’ Divisional Round playoff win against the Buffalo Bills. The injury required surgery, which led to some conflicting messaging between head coach Sean Payton and Nix’s camp.
“It was great,” Nix said of his first practice at a press conference outside the Broncos’ mandatory minicamp. “Today was my first time getting out there and going through everything with them. It was great. As I expected, it was a very clean operation. Our guys are doing a great job.”
Nix broke a bone in his ankle on the third-to-last play of the Broncos’ 33-30 Divisional Round win over the Buffalo Bills. Payton said at the time that the injury would require surgery. A few days later, Payton said that Nix had a condition that predisposed him to an ankle break, and it was not a matter of if, but when.
Nix refuted Payton’s comments the next day, saying that there was nothing predisposed. The saga added another layer in April, when reports surfaced that he had another surgery on the ankle. Payton said at the time that it was “not a surprise.”
On Tuesday, Nix clarified that he was dealing with a bone spur in his ankle around the repaired area.
While he likely could have played through it and wanted to get back to full speed, soreness from the bone spur had been aggravating him, so he made the decision to fix it right away and still have time to prepare for the season.
He said his doctors told him his ankle looked as good as new, and he felt he could go full speed in practice right now. In the meantime, he took the opportunity to learn on the sidelines during OTAs and get his physical reps during camp and the season.
“I’m actually sort of glad we’ve got it all out of the way, don’t have to do it in the years to come,” he said. “But football’s a physical game, so there’s no telling what'll come up. But for right now, I feel really good about the steps I’m making and [I’m] going to be just fine.”
Nix was moved by the national media attention his injury drew.
“I think it’s funny,” he said. “Nobody’s really ever cared about me this extensively for a long time, so I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I got little kids at the park asking me if my legs are crooked and all, I think it’s sort of crazy.”
He said he regarded it as just part of the ups and downs of being a professional athlete at the center of national attention.
“We live in a culture that’s—you get secondhand sources, and you just run with them and believe them,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I’ve been here before. I feel great. I’m going to be strong. I’m going to be fast, elusive. Everything that I’ve done in the past, I’m gonna be able to do again. It’s a broken bone, for crying out loud. Everybody probably here has had an issue with a broken bone, but you end up right back the same. So, I feel really confident in myself in my training, and it’s not going to hinder me at all.”
Nix joked that he might be even more mobile now.
“They say it’s back healthy, good as new, and that I hadn’t really been like that in a couple years,” he said. “So my concern is I may move around a little bit better.”
