The bandages already spoke for themselves. For weeks in Dove Valley, Nik Bonitto has wrapped roughly six of his fingers in slivers of white tape. Already, he has played three months in 2025 with a large white club on his right wrist, earned after he slammed his hand into the ground in frustration after the Colts’ walk-off win over the Broncos in Week 2. That one was self-inflicted. Still, tack it on the list.
His body began to break down towards the end of his first 17-game season in 2024, Bonitto reflected back in June. The follow-up hasn’t been any easier. In the preseason, Bonitto had a bone spur surgically removed from his foot. Five months later, the 26-year-old outside linebacker has gone full Bionic Man.
On Christmas morning, Bonitto showed up to Arrowhead Stadium for the Broncos’ matchup with the Chiefs wearing a monstrous brace on his right arm. He’s still carrying it around in practice, a week later. There’s no uncovered patch of skin on that arm below his right shoulder.
“I don’t like that s—, man,” Bonitto told The Denver Post at his locker, scoffing at the brace after Denver’s 20-16 win over Kansas City. “That s— ugly as hell.”
The 2025 calendar year brought a clear ascendance to the highest ranks of the NFL, with Bonitto now earning his second straight Pro Bowl nod and sitting at a team-high 12.5 sacks through 16 games this season. He earned the largest contract for a non-quarterback in Broncos franchise history. He’s proved, unequivocally, that his 2024 breakout was real. But little in the past couple months has come easy: after a torrid pace through the early part of the season, Bonitto has just 4.5 sacks in his last 10 games.
It’s not as if he can’t play. The club is little impediment; Bonitto is a “finesse” rusher anyway, his game not predicated on attacking linemen with power, as longtime trainer Javon Gopie said. But it’s not hard to see, as the calendar turns to 2026, that the months have taken their toll.
“It’s been a long season,” Bonitto told The Post. “That’s all I can say. It’s been a long season, for sure.”
His slingshot jumps off the ball have come fewer and further between, as Bonitto’s recorded just five pressures without a sack in his last two games. After widespread defensive collapse in a 34-20 loss to the Jaguars in Week 16, Bonitto muttered to reporters he “played a– today.” He sat at his locker in the moments after, the collar of an eggshell-white jacket flipped up and zipped up over his mouth. Almost trying to visibly shrink, a turtle into its shell.
Still, though, 90% of Bonitto is more valuable to this Broncos defense than most pass-rushers in the NFL would be. His average get-off time in 2025 is second-fastest among all pass-rushers (0.76 seconds), behind only Browns extraordinaire Myles Garrett. And Bonitto has often had to weigh a dearth of potential sacks against Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph’s cage-rush principles, deployed often this season against a host of mobile quarterbacks.
“There’s times today where I felt like I could’ve had the speed rush to the outside, but — I mean, knowing the type of quarterback we’re playing, I could go outside and he’s just going to step up and run in the B-gap,” Bonitto told The Post after that Chiefs win. “So, I mean, that’s just the type of smart rushing we need to have.”
Head coach Sean Payton, asked Monday about Bonitto’s declining numbers, emphasized repeatedly he was “not worried about the sacks.”
“Worried about caging the quarterback, rushing properly,” Payton said. “So we’re not focused on the sack numbers. Those can actually be numbers that help the quarterback climb up in the pocket.”
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“Everybody has an ego,” Gopie said this week. “Everybody wants to be the guy … but truly being a pro, part of it is sacrificing yourself for the scheme.”
If he plays Sunday against the Chargers — there’s no indication he wouldn’t — Bonitto will have played in every single game the past two seasons. The overall numbers have masked the bruises, and the droughts. But the self-described Bloodhound remains on the hunt.
“When we kill ourselves, anybody can beat us,” Bonitto said, in Kansas City. “But when we’re locked in and doing what we’re supposed to do, we can do anything.”
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