Broncos edge rusher Nik Bonitto discusses the upcoming AFC championship game against New England, the team’s emotions after losing starting quarterback Bo Nix, the confidence he has in backup QB Jarrett Stidham and being named a finalist for the AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year award.

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Rob Maaddi, host: Welcome to On Football, I’m Rob Maaddi. It’s championship Sunday in the NFL. The Broncos home against the Patriots. A rematch from 10 years ago when it was Peyton Manning against Tom Brady and now it’s gonna be Drake Maye against Jarrett Stidham because Bo Nix broke his ankle in the win against Buffalo. Tough, terrible news for the Broncos. You gotta feel for Bo Nix, but Jarrett Stidham’s gonna step in there. Our guest is Nik Bonitto. He is an AP defensive player of the year finalist, edge rusher for the Broncos, so we’ll talk to him about the game. And in the NFC, it’s Rams-Seattle, part three. Seahawks and Rams split the season series, each one at home. This time they’re going to be in Seattle, more on that in Pro Picks.

Life as a head coach in the NFL is a pretty tough job. Yes, there’s only 32 of them in the world, and it seems glamorous, but sometimes even winning doesn’t guarantee job security. Vince Lombardi once said, winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Well, in the NFL sometimes, winning the Super Bowl is the only thing, and then some guys get fired a few years later. Look at Sean McDermott. The Buffalo Bills let him go after seven straight playoff appearances, six with Josh Allen at quarterback. They just couldn’t get past the AFC championship game. And they lost in the divisional round this year to the Broncos. And now, Sean McDermott is available. Buffalo’s got a great head coach opening. John Harbaugh got fired. He’s been a winning head coach. He landed with the Giants. It’s happened to Andy Reid in Philadelphia many years ago. John Fox in Denver, Tony Dungy in Tampa Bay. Sometimes winning doesn’t guarantee you get to keep your job. And those owners are hoping for a Super Bowl and they may not get it.

Nik Bonitto is one of the best edge rushers in the NFL. This year, he is a finalist for the AP Defensive Player of the Year Award. Here’s my conversation with Nik. Well, first off, I wanna get started with, you had a fantastic year, a great year. You’re a finalists for Defensive Player of The Year. What does it mean to you to be considered for that award?

Nik Bonitto, Broncos edge rusher: No, you’re lying right now.

MAADDI: Nah, man, definitely. You are a finalist for DPOY.

BONITTO: Oh my God, no, that’s crazy. I mean, that that’s just, I don’t even have the words for it right now. I mean that’s just, an honor to be just up there with a bunch of the great defensive players in the game. So man, that was pretty sweet.

MAADDI: What does it take, man, to really have a season like you had to come from where you had a couple of years into the league and then you really hit your stride last year and now to be here and to be at a point where you’re playing for a chance to go to Super Bowl but also to have the personal accolades too as well?

BONITTO: Um, yeah, I mean, it’s just everything I’ve ever dreamed of, you know, just growing up and wanting to come into the league and do, I mean, we have a special opportunity right now where, um, you know, some people don’t get to in their lives, being able to play for a chance to go to a Super Bowl. And obviously with the accolades and stuff that that’s amazing as well. But I mean when you talk about just being at, you know, the pinnacle of the sport and, you know, you being able to get there with your team, I mean it’s pretty special.

MAADDI: When you go into a season, do you set aside personal goals and say, I’d like to achieve this, that, or the other?

BONITTO: Not necessarily. Um, I always go into the year as far as just like I want to be better than I was last year. Like what are things that you know, I didn’t do last year, um, that that I can be better at and you know, even the things that I did do, how can we enhance those type of things and and continue to be better at that as well. So that’s kind of how I see it from a year-to-year basis

MAADDI: How much do you enjoy playing for a coordinator like Vance?

BONITTO: Oh, I love it, man. I mean, you know, V.J., he truly is a guy who motivates and gets the best out of all his players. And when they just talk about this game, I mean it’s perfect for a bunch of the guys on the team. It shows us a lot of their versatility. I know with the OLB's, it gives us opportunities to show that we can rush the pass or defend the run, you know, drop back in coverage. So it just provides you so many things to show off with your talent and things that God has given you.

MAADDI: And then to be part of a defense where you got Zach Allen, who’s an All-Pro, you got Patrick Surtain, who was Defensive Player of the Year last year. And you’ve got so much talent on that defense. How much does it help you just to be able to focus in and do your job, Nik?

BONITTO: Oh yeah, and you know that’s the beauty of it when you play with so many great players. All you got to do is your job. You don’t have to get outside yourself. You don’t have to try to reach in for plays and stuff like that because you know you got other guys that can go do it. Specifically on the D-line, man, we got a bunch of dogs and even on the back end with all those guys like you said, Pat, Huff, all those guy back there. So you don’t ever have to do too much in this defense. Just doing your job and making plays is all we focus on.

MAADDI: I know Saturday was a mix of emotions, right? You guys win that game, you advance to the AFC championship game, and then y’all find out about Bo and the unfortunate situation with his ankle. What was that like to just kind of navigate the highs and then to have to deal with the reality?

BONITTO: Yeah, I mean, obviously, it was such a great win. Everybody fought hard, and we ended up winning that game. And obviously, for news like that to come out, it kind of... Not going to lie, it hurt. Just because we know the type of leader that Bo was for our team. We know how great of a player. We know the hard work that he puts in. So we’re more hurt for him than anything. But at the same time, we know we have the opportunity in front of us, and have a great quarterback in Stidie that is just as capable to leading us to wins as well. So, it was very sad and we were hurt for him. But at the same time, we have opportunity in front of us to go and play for him and win a Super Bowl for him.

MAADDI: What have you seen out of practice and, not just this week, like in training camp or whenever you’ve had the opportunity to see Jarrett in practice?

BONITTO: Yeah, I always tell the story. I was just telling people yesterday. He’s actually funny because he’ll be in there, you know, he’ll be throwing dots, like throwing no-look passes in practice, and then he’ll let us know about it too, man, talking trash to whoever. So he has ultimate, you know, confidence in himself, and you gotta have that playing that position, and that’s why I’m really excited for him to go out. You know, he’s earned this opportunity to go out and show off his talents, and I can’t wait to see him.

MAADDI: How do you make sure that you guys as a defense don’t put extra pressure on yourself? Cause I think it could be normal, it could be natural where you feel like, all right, we’ve got a backup quarterback in there, we’ve got to be perfect. And rather than be perfect, go out there and play your game. How do make sure you do that?

BONITTO: Yeah, and I feel like even, you know, with Stidie or Bo, we kind of have that mindset anyway, where we kind want to not have mistakes. Obviously, it’s football. There’s going to be mistakes, but we want to lower the mistakes. We want to be able to make life easy for the offense. We want to be able to create turnovers and all these different things to give them a short field or to give him more opportunities to get the ball. So I don’t think we have a sense of added pressure defensively. I just feel like we always have to come out with the mindset where we shouldn’t have to rely on the offense to win games. We want to put it on ourselves always.

MAADDI: Time for some Pro Picks. The four-pack last week was 3-1 straight up, 1-3 against the spread. Overall this year, the four-pack, 56-21-1 straight up, 46-31-1 against the number. The Patriots are 16-3, they’re at Denver, they are 15-3. The Broncos are 5 1/2-point home underdogs because Bo Nix is out. Jarrett Stidham is in at quarterback. But I wouldn’t write off the Broncos. We’ve seen backup quarterbacks step in and lead their teams all the way to the Super Bowl. Nick Foles did it for the Eagles against the Patriots just a few years ago against Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Denver’s got a great defense. We just heard from Nik Bonitto and Zach Allen, Patrick Surtain, they’ve got all those guys. And what they gotta do against the Patriots is try to cause some turnovers. Drake Maye’s fumbled a few times in the postseason. He’s also made quite a few plays. They’ve got a great offense on that New England side of the ball. Denver’s got a defense that can dominate at times. Last week, of course, they gave up 30 points against Josh Allen and the Bills and still came out on top. I see this game coming down to the end. If Jarrett Stidham doesn’t turn the ball over, if he’s a game manager, he’s going to put them in position where maybe they can win it down the stretch. The Patriots, they’re healthier, they’ve got their starting quarterback. Drake Maye’s had a tremendous season. He’s one of the finalists for the AP NFL MVP award and the offensive player of the year award. Spoke to him this weekend, he is ready to go. I think Drake Maye pulls it out at the end. Denver’s got a chance, keeps it close, but the Patriots win it, 20-16. They win. Broncos cover the number. The NFC championship game is a showdown between the two best teams in the West. The LA Rams are 14-5, at Seattle, 15-3. Seahawks are a two-and-a-half point home favorite. The Rams are seeking their third straight road win in these playoffs. They eliminated Carolina, and then they went to overtime against Chicago. The Seahawk dominated the 49ers last week. And I look at this game and it comes down to me, Matthew Stafford, MVP candidate, one of the finalists against Sam Darnold, who has struggled in his last three games against the Rams. He’s got seven interceptions, he’s been sacked 13 times. One of those games was the playoff game last year with the Vikings. Now, he did rally the Seahawks back from a 16-point deficit in December to win a game in overtime. Ultimately I believe this game is going to come down to that one mistake that Sam Darnold makes and Matthew Stafford doesn’t and that’s why I’m taking the Rams on the road to win this game, 27-26.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for watching and listening to On Football. Thank you to Nik Bonitto and thank you to Haya Panjwani and Guillermo Gonzalez for producing this episode. Please check out APNews.com for more Pro Picks, On Football analysis and more NFL news.

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