In hindsight, there was a healthy dose of risk involved with the strategy.When Broncos quarterback Bo Nix walked onto the field early in the second quarter of last season’s AFC divisional playoff game against the Buffalo Bills, he needed to grant his defense some much-needed rest as much as he needed to lead a scoring drive. The Bills’ offense had run 15 of the game’s previous 18 plays, sandwiching two long drives around a Denver three-and-out. Head coach Sean Payton wanted to create “The Oxygen Tank Game” against Buffalo, as ESPN reporter Seth Wickersham detailed after being embedded with Payton during the playoffs last season, and at that point it was the Broncos’ defense that had its collective lungs burning.Instead of a methodical approach to their third drive of the game, though, the Broncos hit the gas. They ran four straight plays without a huddle, one of which was a 27-yard pass to Marvin Mims Jr. that flipped the field. Nix finished the drive with a 7-yard touchdown pass to Frank Crum, the offensive tackle who lined up as eligible on a third-and-1 play. It was a sequence that lit the fuse on a standout performance for Nix, who threw for 289 yards and three touchdowns and ultimately beat Josh Allen in a postseason shootout.How Davis Webb is taking the reins as Broncos' new play-callerNick Kosmider“Bo wants to play street ball,” Payton said in the lead-up to the game, according to Wickersham’s account. “So I’m going to create some street ball.”The question now, as Nix heads into his pivotal third season as Denver’s starting quarterback, is whether the Broncos and new play caller Davis Webb can use the lessons of that game to help Nix avoid the sluggish starts that have dotted the early stages of his career. The Broncos quarterback has won 25 games, including the postseason, during his two seasons as an NFL starter. He has piloted eight fourth-quarter comebacks since entering the league, tied for the most in the NFL during that span. His 10 game-winning drives are also tied for the NFL lead since 2024. Some of those theatrics, though, have resulted from Nix struggling at times to find his rhythm early in games.Nix has posted a 79.8 passer rating in first quarters since entering the league, which ranks last out of 33 qualifying quarterbacks in that span, according to TruMedia. His 65 percent completion rate ranks 31st and he is 26th in expected points added (EPA) per dropback. Nix has averaged 6.1 yards per pass attempt in first quarters since 2024, which ranks 31st. The Broncos, Wickersham noted after attending Denver’s game-planning meetings in the playoffs, avoid “calling shallow crossing routes the first few drives because Nix might throw the ball high and hard, leading to a tipped pass and interception.”One benefit of using the early quick-tempo or “NASCAR” approach against the Bills was creating a way to counteract some of Nix’s over-amped tendencies at the start of games. There is no copy-and-pasting of game plans in the NFL, particularly from season to season, but the Broncos will no doubt explore adding more tempo to the early game menu.Denver hit those notes with success at times last season. Nix had seven dropbacks on no-huddle plays in a December victory against the Packers and completed pass attempts on all seven of those plays for 95 yards — most of which came in the first half. For all his first-quarter struggles overall last season, Nix’s 127.1 passer rating on no-huddle attempts in first quarters (14-of-16 for 152 yards and one touchdown) was the best mark in the league. It’s a small slice of Nix’s overall first-quarter output (120 pass attempts), but an encouraging sample nonetheless.Could creating a heavier volume of those plays help address some of Nix’s passing efficiency issues to begin games?“We’ll grow and adapt as the season goes,” Webb said. “We have a pretty good idea of where we’ve been with Bo the last couple of years and what’s been successful. We started in February as a coaching staff (saying), ‘Hey, let’s look at the last two years since Bo’s taken over. What are we good at? What do we need to look at? What’s going on around the league? Who do we play?’ It’s been a combination of a lot of things. It’s been some new ideas, especially in the spring, to kind of get (the offense) off the ground and see where everything is at.”First quarters for offenses typically are encompassed by a set of 15 or so plays that are scripted to begin a game. That’s why Webb’s impact on Nix’s starts this season will be a particularly important part of his job in Year 1. It’s not solely a quarterback issue. The Broncos ranked only 26th last season in EPA per rush (-0.14) in first quarters compared with a 17th-place ranking (-0.03) across all other points in the game. The Broncos also dropped 13 first-quarter passes in 2025, by far the most in the league. Improving at the outset of games won’t come down to simply dialing up more NASCAR. Webb, with a heavy hand from Payton in game-planning sessions, must create a plan that puts the Broncos in attack mode from the start.“I think we’ll have a lot of different tempos,” Nix said. “I think we’ll try to play fast; I think we’ll try to slow it down. Sort of feel it out as we go through training camp, as we get through a couple of games and just sort of see what we’re good at and play from there.”Payton has been adamant that the Broncos can’t count on the same close-game success as they had last season, when they went 11-2 in regular-season games decided by eight points or fewer. Part of the reason Denver had such a high volume of those games is that slow starts against teams like the Titans, Jets, Giants and Raiders forced Denver to sweat the finishes. Yes, Denver went a collective 5-0 against those teams, but a tougher schedule will demand sharper execution if the Broncos want to repeat last season’s AFC West title and No. 1 seed double.Perhaps giving Nix more “street ball” opportunities to begin games is part of the answer. Either way, a Year 3 leap for Denver’s franchise quarterback hinges on better efficiency in the moments after kickoff.