Grading Broncos' Selecting OLB Nik Bonitto at Pick 64
In 2021 the Denver Broncos were one of the worst teams in the entire NFL at rushing the quarterback. Losing Von Miller midseason and Bradley Chubb for a majority of the year due to an ankle injury certainly didn’t help matters, but regardless, the Broncos had to come away this offseason with multiple options for getting after the quarterback.
With the 64th overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft, the Broncos did just that, selecting the speed edge rusher Nik Bonitto out of Oklahoma. Measuring in at 6-foot-3 and 248 pounds (9th percentile for edge rushers) with 32-½-inch arm length (13th percentile), Bonitto is very similar in body type to Denver’s 2021 Day 2 pick Baron Browning, whom the Broncos were purportedly considering cross-training as an edge this season.
Given Bonitto’s smaller stature for the position, he needed to be a dynamic athlete with speed and twitch at the position. On tape, he certainly shows burst and the ability to get after the quarterback.
According to Pro Football Focus, Bonitto had a 25.2% pass-rush win rate — good for second-best amongst Power 5 edge rushers this past season. There is some nuance to this statistic as the Big 12 put out poor offensive tackle play last season and Oklahoma’s defense ran a very slant-based front seven making what Bonitto did in terms of his role very translatable to the NFL level. Speed, twitch, and bend were all on display for Bonitto on Saturdays.
When asked about Bonitto, NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah (who was higher Bonitto than nearly anyone he had spoken to entering the draft) stated that the Broncos walking away with the Sooner edge would be a home run selection.
“He’s not Von Miller, but he plays like a poor man’s Von. He can really bend the edge and do some things off the edge. He’s my 43rd ranked player.”
Denver got Bonitto at 64. Given his smaller stature and athleticism, it’s also no surprise that he has some solid reps in coverage. Somewhat of a tweener between edge rusher and linebacker, Bonitto is good in space for an edge both tasked in zone or pursuing a ball-carrier in space.
This does draw concerns, though, that while being able to rush the passer is far and away the most valuable contribution from an edge rusher, being able to set the edge and control blockers at the point of attack is extremely important in an NFL that is throwing the ball more on “run” downs than ever before.
As GM George Paton stated after making the pick, Bonitto will need to get stronger to hold up against the run to project beyond the designated pass rusher (DPR) role that he will likely be limited to his rookie season. This might be hard for Bonitto considering his smaller frame. However, given how small his bottom half looks on tape currently, there certainly is room for muscle to be added that should not take away from his explosiveness.
Hopefully, in adding mass to his frame as well, Bonitto will show better speed to power in his pass rush. Bonitto could win around blockers with speed and the wide offensive line alignments in the Big 12 (especially rushing in Oklahoma’s exotic slanting front). However, when he is tasked with playing through blockers to rush the passer, the speed to power is extremely lacking.
Bonitto arrives with speed, but he tends to crumple upon contact from the blocker. Simply put, he’s far more finesse and lacking much power at this point in his career and that very well may always be a limitation for him in his game.
The selection of Bonitto and his style of play likely doesn’t spell the end for Chubb’s time in Denver as he is far more of a classic edge than Bonitto who projects more of a small finesse pass rusher that teams would probably be better served dropping into coverage than asking him to play edge contain, such as a Haason Reddick or a Harold Landry.
However, the selection of Bonitto likely does spell the end of Malik Reed in Denver who could be traded for late 2023 draft capital at some point before the start of the 2022 season. If the Broncos are indeed playing a scheme more similar to that of Vic Fangio’s match quarters, Bonitto’s lack of length, size, and power at the point of attack could be a concern for the Broncos.
A key tenet of defenses living in pre-snap two-high safety shells is that, in order to play lighter boxes, the front-seven guys have to be stout at the point of attack to help cover against the run across multiple gaps. That is not Bonitto’s game.
Given the pass-rush upside in terms of twitch and burst, all while picking edge at pick 64 (a position whose NFL success is more correlated to being drafted earlier than any other), any player at the position the Broncos selected was going to possess some warts. The rumor mill had the Broncos trying to trade up from 64 to select Nebraska’s Cam Taylor-Britt and USC’s Drake Jackson, the latter of whom went a few selections before Denver was on the clock.
The reality that Paton was then trying to trade down from pick 64 before finally deciding to select Bonitto does somewhat harshen the feel of the selection. Denver didn’t settle, but if these rumors are true, the board didn’t exactly fall as they had hoped.
How Bonitto is utilized will be interesting, and perhaps this selection is a peek behind the curtain for the plans for DC Ejiro Evero going forward. Having coached the defensive backs under schemes led by Brandon Staley, who utilized a lot of match quarters defense from pre-snap two-high safety shells with a four-man front, and Raheem Morris, who kept the two-high safety shells but utilized far more cover 3 with five defensive players along the line of scrimmage, it seems like Bonitto would greatly fit the latter to give him less gaps to account for.
Furthermore, with more options along the line of scrimmage, the option to send Bonitto or drop him adds a wrinkle of deception from the pass rush front that should be less static than the unit under Fangio. There is also the chance that Bonitto could not wind up as an edge at all, and instead become more of a versatile move piece that plays off-ball linebacker on first and second down and moving to edge or over the A gap on money downs.
Chris Simms compared Bonitto's potential usage as a “poor man’s Micah Parsons." This might honestly be the best role for Bonitto, limiting his reps needing to set the edge while allowing him more advantageous pass-rush situations in obvious passing downs.
Bonitto should help the Broncos in 2022 give the defense a depth pass rusher that can come in and provide some much-needed juice and add to Paton’s desire of having “a wave of pass rushers," but until the rookie shows he can hang in the run game on first and second down and add more power and strength to his game, concerns will linger that Denver used an early pick on a rotational player as a “designated pass rusher."
Denver’s front office gets bonus points for standing pat and not trading up and selecting a position of tremendous value, though.
Grade: B-
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