Fantasy Football 2025: QB Bo Nix player profile

Bo Nix shines as a rookie: After a slot start, Nix became one of the best waiver wire options at quarterback over the rest of the season.
The Denver Broncos add to the offense: Denver drafted R.J. Harvey and signed free agent tight end Evan Engram, which should help the offense take another step forward.
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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.

Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs

Last updated: 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, June 10

Player performance

Bo Nix was the 12th overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft. He beat out Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson in training camp to be the Denver Broncos’ Week 1 starter. He was off to a slow start, throwing one touchdown pass over the first four weeks and earning a sub-50.0 PFF offensive grade in three of four games. He was QB22 over those first four weeks, but QB5 over the rest of the season.

He averaged 2.2 passing touchdowns per game over his last 13 games, which was a big part of his success from a fantasy perspective. He only achieved 300 passing yards in two games, and he needed a completion percentage of over 80% in order to reach that many passing yards. He posted three games over the second half of the year with an 80.0-plus PFF passing grade, finishing another three games in the 70.0s. This meant he also had some bad games, which is to be expected for a rookie. His 72.8 passing grade ranked seventh best among the 17 rookies with at least 500 snaps in their rookie season. His passing grade was better than fellow rookies Caleb Williams and Drake Maye.

It’s fair to expect Nix’s touchdowns per game to regress while his quality of play improves, leading to more passing yards per game.

Nix’s rushing production was an asset to his fantasy value. His 2.9 scrambles per game ranked third-most among quarterbacks, leading to 21.2 rushing yards from scrambles per game and 0.12 rushing touchdowns from scrambles per game, which both ranked seventh-most.

Projected utilization

Nix will remain the Broncos' starting quarterback, continuing to work with Sean Payton. While Nix’s scramble rate and designed rate were higher than average for quarterbacks, it’s possible his designed run rate could be even higher this year. Denver seemed fine running with Russell Wilson in 2023 at a higher rate than Nix ran last year, so we could see more intentional carries.

Nix had a unique combination of a low average depth of target and a high deep target rate. This is ideal for a fantasy quarterback to be able to make both big plays, as well as some easy passes. His accuracy was only average, and that will need to improve for him to take the next step forward as both an NFL passer and fantasy quarterback. This would also ideally lead to more big time throws.

The goal is for Nix to be the next Drew Brees, who peaked at 24.5 fantasy points per game in Sean Payton’s offense, but in most of his other good years, he hovered around 20 points per game. The bar is generally higher now due to the dual-threat quarterbacks, but Nix had 430 rushing yards last year, while Brees peaked at 130 rushing yards.

Impact of teammates

The Broncos were able to retain the majority of their assets on offense. They brought in second-round rookie R.J. Harvey, who should be a notable upgrade at running, and Evan Engram, who should be a notable upgrade at tight end. The Broncos don’t have any star players in their offense, but several good players to spread the ball around to. The good thing about Harvey is that he is known for his receiving more than his rushing, so if anything, this should lead to a higher pass rate by the Broncos instead of increasing how often they run the ball.

Nix was greatly helped by having the highest graded offensive line in terms of pass protection. The entire line played at least 800 snaps and at least 13 games. Left tackle Garett Bolles had a great rookie season in 2017 and has generally improved as his career has progressed. Center Luke Wattenberg and right guard Quinn Meinerz took notable steps forward in 2024. Nix had an 85.0 passing grade when kept clean and a 39.8 passing grade under pressure. If Nix takes a step back in his second season, it would likely be from injuries to the offensive line.

Bottom line

Nix had a great rookie season from a fantasy perspective thanks to a strong offensive line, a high touchdown rate and his rushing ability. While his touchdown rate will likely regress, changes to the personnel and general improvement should help Nix retain his fantasy value while ideally making him more consistent.

Footnotes

Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
“Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.