In his first seven seasons as the Denver Broncos’ left offensive tackle, Garett Bolles blocked for 12 starting quarterbacks, including two rookies. In his eighth season, Bolles blocked for one starting quarterback – rookie Bo Nix – and the tackle reached the NFL playoffs for the first time.

“As a young quarterback in this league, you can get jitters, get down on yourself,” Bolles said during an appearance on FanDuel Sports Network’s “Golic and Golic.” “But you never see that from him. You see calm, collected. Bo’s ready to rock every single day, and it’s so cool to see that. You talk about some of the greatest quarterbacks in our league with Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees and all these guys and you look at their composure and their demeanor of being great. And that’s what Bo brings. He brings the composure not just to himself, but to his teammates. And when you’re in the huddle and you’ve got to drive the ball, we were one of the best two-minute teams in football last year. You see him make passes time and time again, and then just work on his craft in the offseason, getting ready for this minicamp that we just finished and now training camp. The sky’s the limit for the kid. …

“One throw that rings a bell to me is when we were playing the Cincinnati Bengals, and we were running a play-action pass. He launched the ball 60-plus yards in the air to Marvin Mims. What a freak of a throw that was. We all saw that, and just watching that ball in the sky and it was like, ‘Man, he had to put that right in his hands.’ To make that type of a throw to where he doesn’t skip a beat and he’s still running in stride, that’s a hard thing to do. A lot of quarterbacks underthrow or overthrow.

“Just to be that dialed in, and in big-time moments never be afraid of those moments. There’s times we had to score in the fourth quarter to win a game and there’s times where we had to drive in the fourth quarter in a two-minute drive or before halftime to put points on the scoreboard to win. No matter what the situation is, no matter the stress level it is, no matter how rocking the stadium is, that man never blinks, and it’s just super impressive to watch him lead our team and to be that example for us.”

RELATED: DENVER COORDINATOR ON BO NIX: ‘YOU CAN JUST FEEL THE COMFORT LEVEL’

After three seasons at Auburn and two at Oregon, Nix joined Denver as the 12th pick in last year’s NFL Draft. With the rookie starting every game at quarterback, the Broncos won 10 games and made their first playoff appearance since 2015.

The former Pinson Valley High School star completed 376-of-567 passes for 3,775 yards with 29 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Nix posted the eighth-most passing yards and the second-most TD passes by a rookie in NFL history. He also finished sixth among rookies with 430 rushing yards in 2024, when four of his 92 carries went for touchdowns and 41 produced first downs.

On an appearance on NFL Network’s “The Insiders,” Bolles called Nix “a freak of nature.”

“He has swag, man. He really does,” Bolles said. “You would think a rookie like that would come in and it would be hard for him to adjust to the NFL life. And I think it just pays dividends to all the snaps that he had in college and the coaching staffs that he had there with Auburn and Oregon. And then coming to Denver and just embracing his role and being the leader that he is to lead our team down the field to score points. It spoke to us. We scored a lot of points last year, and we’re ready to build off of what we did last year and continue to get better each and every day.”

Denver’s 425 points in 2024 ranked as the most for the Broncos since the 2014 team scored 482 with Manning at quarterback.

Bolles isn’t alone in expecting Nix to lead the Denver offense to an even better showing in 2025.

“It’s definitely about building off what they did last year,” said Broncos cornerback Patrick Surtain II, the NFL Defensive Player of the Year for the 2024 season. “Obviously, going into the second year, he’s feeling more and more confident. Even though he was confident as heck his rookie year, you know he’s going to carry on that confidence and that composure and that swag with him going into Year 2, so I’m very excited for him, what he’s able to do for the offense”

On its summer break now, Denver gets back to work at training camp when the rookies report on July 16 and the veterans come in on July 22. The Broncos’ three-game preseason schedule starts on Aug. 9 against the San Francisco 49ers, and Denver kicks off its regular season on Sept. 7 against the Tennessee Titans.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.