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Jeff Legvold
ENGLEWOOD, Colo.–nine weeks into the 2025 season denver broncos‘The defense is the NFL’s leader in hitting quarterbacks, impacting them and generally making their lives miserable. The Broncos have sacked opposing signal-callers 40 times, 12 more than the next best team, putting them on pace to break the NFL’s single-season record of 72 set in 1984. Chicago Bears,
Nick BonittoThe fourth-year edge rusher leads Denver with eight sacks. And the 2024 second-team All-Pro is one of the league’s most dynamic rushers and the leader of the NFL’s best pass rush because, more often than not, he wins first downs.
“That’s how you come out of the ball, he’s the first one over and over again.” Washington Commanders Edge rusher and Broncos franchise fired leader von miller Said about bonito. “All those people [Jonathon] Cooper, zach allen …he has been discharged. They win the first leg. But Nick Bonitto, he still might not know why he’s so good because he’s young. But it’s good.”
His teammates also know this. Broncos right tackle Mike McGlinchey Said, “I’ll tell you right now about the guy across the locker room [Bonitto] is one of the best [first steps] He has the rarest agility I’ve ever seen. That’s speed-to-speed; it is rare.”
Bonito’s lightning-quick first step puts him squarely in the running for the Defensive Player of the Year award as the 7-2 Broncos prepare to host. las vegas raiders on Thursday (8:15 PM ETEmpower Field at Mile High, Prime Video). He’s looking to eclipse his 13.5-sack mark from last season and help Denver capture its first AFC West title since 2015. But how good is his get-off speed, and how did he go from a late Round 2 pick in the 2022 draft to one of the NFL’s most dangerous pass rushers?
“I’m always trying to come first [after the snap],” Bonito said. ”It’s tough in our group – there are a lot of good first moves out there – but the goal, whatever you do, is to be the first out. And then finish.”
McGlinchey is in His eighth NFL season, his third with the Broncos. He has faced some of the league’s best pass rushers in training camp, including Bonitto and the rest of the Broncos’ pass-rush group. As McGlinchey prepares for the pass protection snap, he knows he must win the “first touch” from his side of the equation.
“Here’s how it goes: 99% of the time, the guy I’m trying to stop is a better athlete than me and I’ve learned, let’s say, 90% of the time, if you throw the ball late in this league, you lose,” he said. “…The first touch is what counts to win, and after that most of the time you can go all out.”
So, for rushers like Bonito and blockers like McGlinchey, winning “cadence” – as McGlinchey calls it – can determine how often the quarterback gets sacked or hit. Home games give blockers a slight advantage because they can hear the quarterback’s final “hut,” “set” or “go.” But when the defense is at home, the noise often surrounds the crime.
Cooper said those moments are when Bonito excels. As the defense gathers each week to review game video, Bonito will have several snaps on which he immediately moves as soon as he snaps the ball, even before the blocker in front of him comes out of his stance.
“Of course you make every effort to be physically explosive, but there’s also a feeling, right away, about when to take the biggest opportunity, about the guy in front of you, about the timing of the game, all of that,” Bonito said. “My goal is to stay as close to Snap as possible.”
According to NFL Next Gen stats, among pass rushers with at least 150 rushes this season, Bonito ranks third in get-off speed at 0.76 seconds. But he’s not the only standout in the Denver locker room; Cooper is actually in first place by 0.73 seconds.
But even Cooper said it’s Bonitto’s quick-whistle quickness, his top-end speed after that distinctive first step, that sets him apart. This has helped Bonito rank third in the league in pressure percentage among players with at least 150 rushes, trailing only 0.1%. green Bay Packers, Micah Parsons At number 2. He is second in the league in quarterback hits with 17, behind his teammate Allen’s 25.
“He’s amazing, I think he’s the best pass rusher,” Cooper said. “…His instincts are off the charts, his get-off…He’s smart out there, his instincts, the way he’s able to run consistently. I’ve said, you think his running is over, but it’s not, it’s a spin back, a counter back, and with his speed, he’s super talented, super athletic.”
bonito is a Case study in the idea that the first step, though rooted in a player’s athleticism when coming to the NFL, can be improved upon.
“It’s always the same story, but after my rookie year, [Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph] He said he wanted me to come to his office, and he said I could become a guy making double-digit jobs every year. And I was like, ‘Are you sure you found the right guy here?'” Bonito said. “He had that vision, but I had to do the work. More than agility or whatever, but all that, the footwork, my hands, getting stronger. But get to work.”
Bonitto showed flashes as a rookie in 2022 but had only one sack on 165 pass rushes and 338 defensive snaps. His first step from the snap that season was 0.84 seconds, which was a blink faster than the average first step over the previous two seasons for rushers with at least 200 pass rushes (0.86).
As Bonito worked to add strength and explosiveness, his average increased to 0.78 in 2023, when he had eight sacks. He continued to reduce that number to 0.76 by the start of the 2024 season, over which span Bonito has 21.5 sacks in 26 games.
“I feel like it’s an accumulation of everything,” Bonito said. “It’s better to learn how to study the tempo of the teams you’re playing with, understand the game clock and be more comfortable in who you are as a player to be able to take advantage of some of those opportunities sometimes.”
Bonito also had to learn what Joseph believes are the simplest of concepts, but one that young pass rushers don’t always put into practice: You don’t sack the quarterback, “you sack the ball.” It’s also about ending the rush.
Joseph said of Bonito, “With Nick, the explosiveness was always there. This was a refinement, adding some strength.” “And he worked hard, he worked smart, he just did all the work. And then it was about to end; he was getting there, but now he attacks the elbows, attacks the ball. … They’re sacks now.”
Bonitto said he’s tried to refine the movements in his workouts to help reaction time — things like resistance training in short, explosive sprints. But being stronger than his final season at Oklahoma has enabled him to “stay on the field more, get more opportunities because I can hold the edge and play in more situations.”
During practice, Bonitto, Cooper and the team’s other edge rushers often compete in one-on-one races over 5 yards to see who can run the fastest. The margins are thin, but the celebrations are often loud.
“I always work on physical things in getting out [after the snap] And explosive,” Bonito said. “But I always feel like there has to be more study and research to make those improvements. …and then in this group, everybody works, everybody gets out early [after the snap] –You don’t want to be the last person there. But physically there’s the quickness and all that, but the real difference is studying and knowing when to take a chance.”
Since 2018, Miller has organized an annual pass rush summit where the league’s best sack performers can gather to exchange ideas and work on techniques to add to their totals. He said that he starts and ends each summit with a first phase session.
“The pass rush happens with the legs up,” Miller said. “Everything starts with your feet. You need to break out of your stance, not take a soft step or roll over. All the wrong steps, the small steps, show up at the end of the race. They take a significant 0.3 [seconds] Away from the hustle and bustle; If you opt out, you add 0.3. That’s the math of it.”
Sometimes that math includes a penalty or two for players like Bonitto. Three of Bonitto’s four penalties this season were for offside.
“It’s like paying taxes; it comes with it,” Miller said. “When you stay on the sidelines like that, and you’re anticipating the ball, going with the ball, not behind the ball. But the thing is, and I’ve learned this and seen it, when you don’t worry about jumping offside – and I’m not saying get penalties and not care – but when you just worry about your technique and your work, you jump offside less. When you worry about penalties, you make every Let’s jump time.’
The Broncos believed Bonitto’s progress, work ethic and results are enough to sign the 26-year-old Four-year, $106 million contract extension That keeps him in Denver through the 2029 season. Much like what happened next at cornerback Pat Surtain II Put signature on his contract extension Over the past year with the Broncos, the pass rusher market around Bonito has exploded.
Just before Bonito signed in September, Parsons signed a Four-year, $186 million deal With the Packers. aidan hutchinson signed again Four-year, $180 million extension with detroit lions Last month. But Bonitto said earlier this season that when he took into account the monetary side of the deal, Joseph’s presence on the staff and his optimism for the team’s future regarding his development with the Broncos, “it all added up to be like, ‘Why wouldn’t I sign to stay here?'”
Bonitto said one of his favorite things about the current Broncos defenders is that they pursue targets the same way they pursue sacks – “together, one unit” – and his biggest goal is to be the league’s best defense with a chance to play in the Super Bowl as often as possible. And it may be Bonito’s approach to everything — his willingness to be first to the ball and first to the sack, what Joseph has called a “rare humility” — that gives the Broncos confidence there’s still much more to come in the edge rusher’s career.
“I said before [this season]”I think there are times in life that you can get caught up in the results,” Bonito said. And I know I fell off a little bit my rookie year, maybe I didn’t get the production I wanted that year or snap counts. But now things are about to get better.
“I mean, I’ve always watched Vonn growing up…to think, ‘Dang, one day I could be in those shoes’ would be great. I know there’s more out there for me, and I have the biggest goals, so keep pursuing it as much as you can.”
