Bo Nix needs to stop playing quarterback like he’s trying to please his father.

Broncos coach Sean Payton is not Nix’s daddy, who raised the QB right but maybe wound him a little too tight.

“I’m definitely tough on myself,” Nix said Wednesday. “It was how I grew up, how I was raised. My dad was my coach. He was tough on me.”

Patrick Nix is an old ball coach who taught his son well. The lessons stuck.

The Broncos young quarterback always stabs himself in the chest with a thumb of accountability. And he would rather throw an incomplete pass in the dirt than get pounded into the turf for a sack.

“It’s tough,” Nix said. “I hate making mistakes. I hate not doing the correct thing.”

With a quarterback rating of 88.2, which grades out to a C-, Nix might be well served if his coach in Denver took a step back and gave some breathing room to a QB pressing to live up to the top-five-in-the-league hype that Payton blabbed way too early.

But we all know that ain’t happening, because Sean always knows best.

Payton is so old school the walls in the meeting rooms at Broncos HQ should be covered in ivy.

In love with his big, beautiful playsheet and personnel groupings that he sends into the Denver huddle like a line change hopping over the boards of a hockey rink, Payton can be a real pain in the khaki pants.

Much, in fact, way too much, has been made by media knuckleheads that Nix and Payton are a quarterback and coach perfectly suited for each other.

Yes, it’s true Payton had a man-crush on Nix because he entered the league as a QB in full at age 24. With more than 60 starts in college, Nix didn’t have to be taught how to color within the lines. He was the dutiful apprentice born in the same year as Payton’s own son.

But after a promising rookie year, instead of playing more free and easy in his second NFL season, Nix too often scribbles furiously within the box. And it can feel like a cage of his own making.

Rather than risking a sack, he gets impatient inside the pocket. Instead of waiting for routes to unfold, he rushes progressions. The devil-may-care scrambles that put defenders on their heels a year ago have been replaced by controlled slides, too often short of the first-down stick.

Since 2024, analytical nerds who quantify everything that happens on the field have determined Nix has checked down more than any quarterback in the league. And even a dummy like me can tell you Nix’s 6.2 yards per attempt ranks 26th in the league.

As a veteran with the scars to prove how tough the NFL can be, Broncos receiver Courtland Sutton loves Nix, but also sees a quarterback who sometimes grinds so hard his natural ability cramps up.

“He’s one of those guys that you’ve got to bring him back into himself,” said Sutton, who sees a lot of himself in Nix. “He’s so much of a perfectionist. And I love that about him. I love the fact that he wants to be the best version of himself.”

But as Nix’s frustration builds when Denver’s offensive drives turn into a gridlock of three-and-out, Sutton feels compelled to remind his quarterback to get out of his own head and stay present rather than get sucked down the rabbit hole with the incessantly critical inner voice of a perfectionist.

His message to Nix?

“Get back where your feet are.”

While it might sound counterintuitive, perhaps Nix should stop working so hard to be the teacher’s pet and try the red nose of a class clown on for size every once in a while.

Quarterback is not a game of perfect.

Sometimes, when Sutton sees Nix trying too hard, he approaches his teammate on the Denver sideline and reassuringly reminds the QB: “We good, bro … We got this.”

Growing up as a pro quarterback is hard to do. Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold had to accept failure as part of the gig before finding success at the NFL level. 

Before he hurriedly throws another pass into the ground to avoid the sack, maybe an old hippie should come out of the stands at Mile High and pass Nix the dutchie.

Stop playing quarterback like your father (or Payton) is looking over your shoulder.

Chill out, bro.

You’ve got this, Bo.