Though he successfully led the Denver Broncos to the playoffs, quarterback Bo Nix revealed Monday that he had to play through a number of small back fractures in order to pull that off.
Nix, fresh off the team’s 31-7 loss to the Buffalo Bills in the wild-card round of the AFC playoffs on Sunday, said that he sustained a series of transverse process fractures in his back. That injury went away in time for the playoffs, but he picked up a pair of key wins while fighting through it.
Nix said he went down during their win over the Las Vegas Raiders on Nov. 24. Nix, according to 9News, was sacked by Raiders defensive end Tyree Wilson in the second quarter of that game and had his back twisted awkwardly as he went down. The transverse process is the bony projection on either side of your vertebrae, and the bones stick out perpendicular to its length when fractured, per the Cleveland Clinic.
After the injury, Nix threw a pair of touchdowns in the second half of their win against the Raiders. He then returned the next week to lead them past the Browns in a Monday night game. Nix then had a bye week to recover.
“I wasn’t going to miss the first Monday night game,” he said, via 9News. “I got treatment on it and then we were fortunate enough to have an off week the next week and it kind of went away after that. That moment was annoying, but we all play with something.”
Nix, who the Broncos took with the No. 12 overall pick in last year’s draft, threw for 3,775 yards with 29 touchdowns and 12 interceptions this season. He went 13-of-22 for 144 yards with a touchdown in Sunday’s loss to the Bills. He led the team on the ground with 43 rushing yards on four carries, too. Though they were bounced out of the playoffs in the first round, it was the team’s first postseason appearance since their Super Bowl run during the 2015 campaign.
