{"id":762855,"date":"2026-06-16T22:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T22:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/762855\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T22:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T22:57:17","slug":"denver-broncos-qb-bo-nix-bone-spurs-led-to-second-ankle-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/762855\/","title":{"rendered":"Denver Broncos QB Bo Nix: Bone spurs led to second ankle surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bo Nix<\/a>, new dad, spends more time at public parks these days.<\/p>\n

Recently, a kid, Nix estimated around 12 years old, walked up to him at one and asked the question at the forefront of Broncos Country\u2019s collective mind.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAre your ankles crooked?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nix answered with a question of his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked him, \u2018Does it look like my ankle\u2019s crooked?\u2019\u201d Nix recalled with a smile Tuesday. \u201cAnd he gave me a good, \u2018No.\u2019 Thank god he didn\u2019t say yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nix\u2019s right ankle has been the enduring storyline of the Broncos\u2019 offseason<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He fractured it in overtime of a playoff win against Buffalo in January<\/a>, had surgery the next day, then began rehab.<\/p>\n

Along the way, though, Nix felt soreness he attributed to \u201ca little bit of an issue with bone spurs\u201d in the ankle. In his first public comments since just after his first surgery, Nix outlined Tuesday how he, the Broncos and his doctors came to the decision to perform a second operation in April<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"BoBo Nix (10) of the Denver Broncos works out during minicamp at the Broncos Park in Centennial, Colorado on Tuesday, June 16, 2026. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n

Nix said he could have played through the 2026 season, but was looking at another operation either after the season or sometime in the future to address the bone spur issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just aggravating me for too long,\u201d Nix said. \u201cSo what we did was, since I was a little bit ahead (in rehabbing), we thought it was best to go ahead and decompress it a little bit and still have plenty of time to get back for the summer to prepare for the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nix made it clear that, after the first operation, he was hoping he\u2019d be able to take part in the offseason program when it began in May. That was the messaging from Broncos brass, too, through February and March.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard because I wanted to be full speed so fast, but that\u2019s just unfortunately not how surgery goes,\u201d Nix said. \u2026 \u201cWhen I got back going, I felt really good, just a little bit of soreness and just wanted to go ahead and get it out of the way for good. Now they tell me \u2014 I didn\u2019t get in there and look at it, but the doctors tell me the ankle looks as good as new and we\u2019re right back to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nix isn\u2019t back to football normal just yet. He graduated Tuesday to being in uniform and helmet for the first day of the Broncos\u2019 three-day mandatory minicamp. He took part in practice on a limited basis, working through the team\u2019s stretch and modified individual work. He did not take part in any of the 11-on-11 reps, instead watching as Jarrett Stidham, Sam Ehlinger and tryout rookie Sawyer Robertson got work.<\/p>\n

By late July, though, when the Broncos report for training camp, head coach Sean Payton says Nix will be fully healthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s worked extremely hard on this recovery and he\u2019s more than ahead of schedule,\u201d Payton said Tuesday. \u2026 \u201cI think it\u2019s been a clean plan relative to the reps, what it is, what it\u2019s not and as this week finishes. When training camp starts, I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll see any governor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nix, for his part, says he doesn\u2019t need one at the moment, either. The team is just being careful with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could go full-go right now if they wanted me to,\u201d he asserted with a grin.<\/p>\n

The Broncos don\u2019t want him to, at least not right at the moment. Payton last week said Nix had taken some walk-through repetitions during the second OTA week. The veteran coach has been fielding questions about Nix\u2019s health all offseason and sounded a bit tired of them Tuesday.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s happy Nix is back on the field, to be sure, but, \u201cit\u2019s not like today he\u2019s put sunscreen on. He\u2019s been out here and getting a lot of work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nix, though, hadn\u2019t said in his own words before Tuesday why the second procedure was necessary or what the first six months of his whirlwind 2026 had been like from breaking the ankle to becoming a father<\/a>, rehabilitation and then the second surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, I\u2019ve been here before,\u201d Nix said. \u201cI feel great, I\u2019m going to be strong, I\u2019m going to be fast, elusive. Everything I\u2019ve done in the past I\u2019m going to be able to do again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s a broken bone for crying out loud. Everyone here has probably had an issue with a broken bone and you end up right back the same. I feel really confident in myself and my training and this is not going to hinder me at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nix has been through ankle injuries before \u2014 he injured his left in high school and then fractured his right at Auburn, though a different bone than the one that broke in January, Nix said \u2014 and noted a pattern he figured might be a silver lining in all of this.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I had an ankle injury in high school, we won the state championship,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I had an ankle injury in college, we went and won a lot of games at Oregon. And now I expect it to be the same thing. \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably won\u2019t be the last time I\u2019m injured and miss a couple games, but hopefully that\u2019s not the case. We\u2019ll take it however it comes, take it day-by-day, but right now it\u2019s just getting back healthy and, once the season comes, it\u2019s right in the past for me, and I don\u2019t even think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bo Nix, new dad, spends more time at public parks these days. Recently, a kid, Nix estimated around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[7,10148,20403,301,2863,187,3943,42237,165,6324,6,9,302,43285,8131,66],"class_list":["post-762855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-nuggets","tag-basketball","tag-bo-nix","tag-broncos-country","tag-denver","tag-denver-broncos","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-denvernuggets","tag-jarrett-stidham","tag-latest-headlines","tag-more-broncos-news","tag-nba","tag-nfl","tag-nuggets","tag-sam-ehlinger","tag-sean-payton","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116762263421691091","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}