On Saturday, the Denver Broncos’ final preseason game against the Minnesota Vikings featured a number of players fighting for a future in the NFL. The survival instinct is a powerful motivator, but for the Broncos’ prized second-round pick Nik Bonitto, it was more about proving he can make a meaningful impact.
Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett has been fairly blunt in his directives towards Bonitto, as has his teammate Bradley Chubb. Bonitto apparently absorbed their guidance, bouncing back with a pair of sacks in the preseason finale.
Coach Hackett had been waiting for his talented rookie to make good all through training camp, so he was delighted with the edge rusher’s powerful showing, which included a strip-sack.
“Yeah, I’m excited to see the tape on that because he definitely had a couple of stat lines that were really good, love watching those sacks,” Hackett said post-game. “He was coming off the rock, he didn’t quit. He had to keep going out there a couple times because we couldn’t get a couple first downs, which was really frustrating… Watching him be able to get those—he had a bunch of tackles, had those two sacks, which was great. Now being able to really look at the film and make sure he was doing everything perfect, which I think he definitely was, up to that point.”
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The previous game’s smackdown at the hands of the Buffalo Bills served as a timely reminder to Bonitto that this is the elite proving ground of the NFL. Redoubling his efforts during the week of practice leading up to the Vikings game paid off, and Bonitto was just thankful for an opportunity to make amends.
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“We took pride in that performance last week and we knew that it wasn’t up to our standard,” Bonitto admitted after beating the Vikings. “We came out on the practice field, and we chose to get better every day and now I feel like we found results today of what practice can do. We had great practice and it translated to the field.”
Clearly, the Broncos have been pushing some buttons on Bonitto to see what inspires him to higher performance levels. Added motivation certainly played its part on Saturday, but Bonitto admitted that for him, it’s more a case of feeding off of confidence, and sacks tend to provide that.
“No doubt. Especially throughout preseason when I know that I’ve been getting kind of close to the quarterback,” Bonitto said. “Just finally getting one (sack) tonight definitely helped my confidence.”
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