Bo Nix spent time with Drew Brees, Sean Payton's former QB, in offseason

Bo Nix described his offseason as one of his calmest in recent memory earlier this summer.

To be sure, he didn’t have to learn from a new offensive coordinator. Didn’t transfer schools. Didn’t have to go right from his final college season headlong into preparing for the NFL draft.

Nix has been busy, though.

Amid the downtime over the past five weeks, the Broncos’ second-year quarterback hosted a group of receivers and skill position players for a couple of days to work out and spend time together.

He also, according to head coach Sean Payton, spent “four or five days” earlier this offseason with former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees in Southern California.

“It’s him just reaching out and just coordinating some time to dive into the offense, the schedule, the calendar, his schedule, his workweek in season,” Payton told reporters Wednesday.

Payton said he wasn’t sure exactly when the visit took place — a source said it was late in the spring — but Nix obviously has plenty of reason to want to pick Brees’ brain. Brees and Payton won a Super Bowl together with New Orleans in 2009 and spent 15 years together in the Bayou — a run that included seven NFC South titles.

That, of course, makes Brees a perfect sounding board for Nix.

When Nix first got drafted, he received a 15-page outline from Denver quarterbacks coach Davis Webb that had, among many other things, frameworks for how Webb’s friends and former teammates like Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes structured their offseason.

It might seem trivial from the outside, but the calendar is considerably different than in college football and franchise quarterbacks, of course, have pressure on their time pretty much year-round.

Nix had the chance to get Brees’ feedback about that kind of thing, in addition to Brees being perhaps the foremost expert in Payton’s offensive playbook and philosophies.

“(Nix is) someone that works his tail off, wants to improve,” Payton said. “The whole offseason is planned out. … There’s a lot he wants to absorb in a fast period of time and that’s a great thing for a young player like that. We’re never going to just pick up where we left off, but there’s a lot of building to do when you look at last year and a lot of positives to look at it.”

Payton also said Nix has been working with renowned throwing coach Tom House.

House is a former big league pitcher, perhaps best known for catching Hank Aaron’s record-breaking 715th home run in the bullpen.

The 78-year-old spent years after his playing career teaching throwing mechanics and care to baseball and football players.

Included on his roster of quarterback pupils: Brees, along with Tom Brady and others.

“He’s amazing. He’s a baseball guy,” Payton said. “It’s fascinating. He’s real smart. … He’s a baseball guy that’s really done a great job with a lot of throwers. That’s the best way to describe him, whether it’s a baseball motion or a football motion, those opportunities we get to just have a lunch or sit and visit are pretty special for me. He’s pretty sharp.”

Earlier this offseason, Nix said he’s been able to rest his arm more in the past few months than at any point since he was in high school.

“I didn’t throw a football for a while, but I was doing a lot of shoulder care and arm care and doing some rotational work and doing different things that were kind of replacing the throw,” Nix said in late May. “When you throw, as a quarterback I’m just worried about where the ball ends up. Was it accurate? Was it not? It’s hard to really fix things, get back to the fundamentals and really hone in on them. If you’re throwing a ball against the wall or if you’re mimicking throwing with a towel, you’re not really worried about where the ball is going. You’re just focused on your own mechanics.

“For me, that was good because I was able to do something different, work on my mechanics and tighten some things up.”

For Nix this offseason, that process included spending time with a pair of figures with whom Payton shares a long history.

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