ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Nik Bonitto let a sly smile creep across his face, visions of his past floating back.
It was suggested to the Denver Broncos linebacker on Sunday, minutes after the team’s 31-13 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, that his thievery of a trick-play throw in the middle of the field made him look like a basketball player swiping a cross-court pass and going the other way for a slam dunk. Bonitto would know.
“I was a menace in basketball,” Bonitto responded.
CASA BONITTO!!!!#ProBowlVote + @nikkkkbonitto pic.twitter.com/F3PgKZ0dry
— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) December 16, 2024
Bonitto is having a breakout season that seems to reach new heights weekly. He has at least half a sack in 11 of Denver’s last 12 games. His 11 1/2 sacks are tied for the third most in the NFL and already are the most by a Broncos player since 2018, when Von Miller had 14 1/2 and Bradley Chubb had 12. But it is a pair of unique, explosive plays away from the ball during the past two games that have thrust Bonitto deep into the discussion for the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award. Plays that highlighted Bonitto’s defensive feel and instincts.
Plays, Bonitto said, his basketball past helped him make.
“One thousand percent,” he said. “When guarding as a defender (in basketball), it’s kind of the same as when you’re in coverage. You have your match principles. There’s a lot of that stuff in basketball — like spin moves — that I feel really correlates the same as football. There is a lot of stuff you can bring over from basketball to football.”
Bonitto played basketball in middle school and for parts of two seasons at St. Thomas Aquinas High in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. As a 6-foot-3, 225-pound guard, he began attracting college attention for the sport while playing on the Florida Vipers, an AAU team on the Under Armour Elite traveling circuit. He matched up with players like current NBA pros Deandre Ayton, Anfernee Simons and Nick Richards. His pick-and-roll partner was Darius Days, who played college basketball at LSU and then spent time with the Houston Rockets before beginning a career overseas.
Film of Bonitto’s play on the circuit illustrates some of the explosiveness that has helped turn him into an elite pass rusher, but it also showed a player with a sturdy handle who could play with pace and read the court with the ball in his hands.
“I was more of a passing guard. I played the one,” Bonitto said. “I could do a lot of different things. I could go in and get rebounds. I could guard. Finish. I had a shot on me, too. Not to brag, but I could do a lot of stuff.”
LSU and Wake Forest were among those that showed interest in Bonitto as a basketball player, but his recruiting in the sport never took off because he made it clear early on that football was his “first love” and would be the vehicle for him to play professionally.
“As a middle school basketball player, Nik was an outstanding national standout,” said Bonitto’s football coach at St. Thomas Aquinas, Roger Harriott, who recently led the school to a record sixth straight state championship. “But his preferred sport of choice was football. At an early age, he possessed the physical attributes to compete with the best athletes in the country on the court and on the field.”
Bonitto started on Aquinas’ varsity team as an eighth-grader, Harriott said, and he played multiple positions at an “elite level,” from linebacker and defensive end to tight end and wide receiver. But the same trait that helped Bonitto turn the corner as a guard made it clear that his best fit on the football field was on the edge. In the wake of another big game from Bonitto on Sunday, a video recirculated on social media of Broncos general manager George Paton during the NFL Draft in 2022. The behind-the-scenes video shows Paton, as the Broncos prepared to draft Bonitto with the last pick of the second round, turning to a colleague in the draft room and saying, “Nik Bonitto at 64? Holy f—.”
The Broncos knew they were getting elite traits. They just had to be patient with his development.
“He’s really someone that gets off the ball well and he bends well,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said. “It’s hard to do what he does if you don’t bend, and he’s got a real good get-off. He’s kind of earned that and he’s having a tremendous year. I can’t say enough about (him).”
Teammates in the locker room on Tuesday, as the Broncos prepared for Thursday night’s game against the Los Angeles Chargers, were still buzzing about the play Bonitto made against the Colts to all but seal the win. After quarterback Anthony Richardson threw a screen pass to wide receiver Adonai Mitchell, Bonitto immediately recognized something was amiss. The play was taking too long, and Bonitto felt Richardson drifting a few steps back into the backfield. Bonitto paused just long enough so that when he broke on the ball, all his momentum was heading toward the end zone. There was no chance of catching him.
“His ability to make plays, he can sense where the ball is,” fellow linebacker Jonah Elliss said. “Wherever the ball is, he knows exactly where to be at the right time. That’s something you learn through experience, but it’s also just natural for some guys. You can tell that Nik has a lot of experience, but he can just key in on the ball, wherever it is.”
The two touchdowns for Bonitto in December — the first was his pick six of the Cleveland Browns’ Jameis Winston on “Monday Night Football” in Week 13 — have helped make him a top candidate for the defensive player of the year award, according to the betting markets. Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt is the favorite, but Bonitto and teammate Pat Surtain II — the cornerback tied a career high with his fourth interception of the season Sunday — are right in the mix.
BRONCOS PICK SIX
📺: #CLEvsDEN on ESPN
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/X8eJpG9yUj— NFL (@NFL) December 3, 2024
It’s talk that feels surreal to Bonitto.
“It doesn’t seem real that people are mentioning me in that type of stuff,” he said. “I’ve just got to keep going. There are three more games in the season, so I’ve just got to help keep stacking these wins and these kind of performances.”
(Photo: Michael Owens / Getty Images)
