Until we definitively see that Bo knows how to win a close game, you can Nix the idea that Denver has an elite NFL quarterback. 

While trusted by teammates and beloved by his coach, Nix has developed a worrisome habit early in his pro career. 

At closing time, he leaves the door open. 

During eight games decided by seven points or less as the starting quarterback of the Broncos, Nix’s record is 1-7. 

Bo doesn’t blink in the face of failure. But in the clutch of a one-score game, he’s still learning when to settle for the safe play or swing his hammer. 

“There’s a fine line. You’ve got to hit it,” Nix said Wednesday. “I’m always going to be aggressive, especially with our defense, knowing that they can go out there and get a stop. You can’t play the game – (and) you can’t play the position – soft. You’ve got to go out there and be aggressive. You get gun-shy, if you’re scared to make a bad play, that’s usually when bad plays happen.” 

Through two games this season, Nix looks like he’s pressing to live up to the hype. Coach Sean Payton oversold him as a top-five QB waiting to happen. Quite frankly, Nix sometimes looks as if he’s trying too hard to deliver on that promise. 

Yes, it’s early in this NFL season. The sample size is small. 

But with four turnovers in two games, including a costly interception on a forced throw during the Broncos’ fourth-quarter collapse at Indianapolis, Nix currently ranks dead last among NFL starting quarterbacks, if you put credence in advanced metrics or the analytic breakdowns of game tape by Pro Football Focus. 

While all but the most basic of football math stumps a knucklehead like me, the evidence right in front of my eyes doesn’t lie. 

Watching Nix, I see a young quarterback straining to hurry his development. He has too often fallen victim to his own impatience, whether rushing through progressions, bailing on a clean pocket early, or throwing off target at an unacceptably high rate. 

As a rookie, he was content to be a game manager. Nix didn’t take sacks and rarely forced the football into danger. 

Now he wants to be the man. 

We’re tantalized by the athleticism that can jolt you out of your seat. For example: Nix punched all the right video game buttons on a spectacular 42-yard pass to Troy Franklin in the first half against the Colts. 

But his third-down mistakes during the second half, which included poor timing with tight end Evan Engram on an incompletion and an even more costly interception when he forced a ball to Courtland Sutton into coverage, contributed heavily to Denver’s failure to put the hammer down on the Colts. 

Nix yearns to be the best. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Football, however, is not a game of perfection. 

But as Sutton observed: “Bo can tie his shoe, and if it comes untied, he’s like: ‘I tied my shoe terribly right there.’” 

Maybe what a pressing young QB needs to do most in this moment is take a deep breath and swallow a chill pill. 

The Broncos travel this week to California for an AFC West showdown against the Chargers that has taken on outsized importance for a September contest because L.A. has opened the season with victories against the Chiefs and Raiders. 

“Win this game and we’re first in the division,” Denver cornerback Pat Surtain II said. 

True dat. Beat L.A. and all the sins of the collapse in Indy will be forgiven. 

But a 3-0 start by the Chargers against division rivals would be a bolt out of the blue that could put a damper on Denver’s grand design to win the AFC West before a competitive race has a chance to get started. 

Despite a homefield advantage so negligible in SoFi Stadium that Sutton must suppress a laugh when he hears the “Let’s go, Broncos!” chant echoed throughout the Chargers’ backyard, Nix and his teammates somehow managed to squander a 24-13 lead during the second half in L.A. a year ago. 

Does beating the Chargers qualify as a must-win for the Broncos? Maybe not. 

Sutton, however, told the whole truth when he declared: “We have an opportunity to make a statement.” 

Until he produces a victory that shouts his arrival as a quarterback that thrives in the clutch, it’s impossible to consider Nix to be in the same league as Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, or Joe Burrow. 

Nobody wearing a Denver uniform has a chance to make a bigger statement in L.A. than Nix. 

In the maturation of big-time QB that Payton believes Nix is destined to be, this is no time to come up small.