Close-knit Broncos QB Bo Nix and Buccaneers WR Tez Johnson lean on each other through NFL journeys

Luca Evans, The Denver Post on Dec 16, 2025

Published in Football

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DENVER — When they all trickle back under the Nix family roof in Alabama for board-game marathons, the goal is simple. Beat Bo. Because Bo Nix is trying to beat them.

Monopoly. The Chameleon. It does not matter. It extends beyond traditional games: first to finish reading a book, or tie their shoe. When Tez Johnson was 15 years old and a receiver at Pinson Valley High in Alabama, he was introduced into this family by Patrick and Krista Nix, the parents who took Johnson in and came to call him another son.

Johnson was introduced to their way of life: passionate about faith, family, football. About anything. And he was also introduced to his quarterback at Pinson Valley, the quarterback who soon became his brother: Nix, who struggled so intensely with any version of failure that Johnson would watch him fiddle obsessively with a broken remote while they tried to watch Netflix.

“We don’t take losses lightly,” Johnson said. “And he’s not gonna. Not ever.”

From Alabama to one Nix-dubbed “dream” season at Oregon, from Oregon now to pro ball, their shared abhorrence of losing has kept the two adoptive brothers bound tight even 2,000 miles away. Their paths have split again over the past two years, with Nix quarterbacking the Broncos for a second year and Johnson in the middle of his rookie year with the Buccaneers. Still, they are the rock in each other’s corner, a steady belief in one another that never wanes, no matter the turbulence of life in the NFL.

Johnson, a seventh-round pick, has made a splash in his first season in Tampa Bay: 24 catches, 287 yards, five touchdowns in 13 games. Still, Nix has had to remind him every once in a while that a leap doesn’t happen “overnight.”

Still, every time Johnson’s team loses a game — the Buccaneers are 7-7, and 1-5 in their last six games — he calls Nix.

“It’s like, that’s the only person I can cope with,” Johnson told The Denver Post last week.

Nix, too, has helped his brother grasp the intricacies of NFL football — when he can — across the last few months. He doesn’t know Tampa Bay’s scheme or principles, of course. But he pushes Johnson to maximize the opportunity in front of him, and Johnson will pick the 25-year-old Nix’s brain.

“How you watch film, how you look at a cornerback or a DB,” Johnson said. “And you’re getting that from a quarterback’s perspective, not just a receiver coach … I’m getting it from like, ‘OK, this is how the quarterback sees this DB. How can I see this DB the same way?’ (With) him helping me with stuff like that … I feel like I got a leg up.”

In turn, Johnson carries a feverish faith in Nix. Perhaps it’s embellished. He’ll always be partial. But Johnson told The Denver Post he believes Nix is the best quarterback in the NFL.

Then he stopped — and corrected himself.

“Well, actually, the world,” Johnson continued. “Because I don’t see a quarterback that’s out there better than him. Anybody can get around Bo and they can have success because of how hard he’s going to push them, and just because he’s willing to get better.”

Told of Johnson’s comments Wednesday — and reminded that Johnson has a pretty good quarterback himself at the moment in Tampa Bay’s Baker Mayfield — Nix flashed a wry smile.

He treats Johnson just like his other brother, Caleb, currently a safety at Jacksonville State. All of them push each other, Nix said.

“I would say all three of us believe that each other is the best at what we do,” Nix told The Post. “Regardless if that’s true, it’s just the importance of having somebody’s back, and believing in ‘em.”

Sure, Nix and Johnson talk smack. They are competitive, after all. Nix pokes Johnson that the Broncos, sitting at 11-2, are better than the Buccaneers. But they share a deeper encouragement — both spoken and unspoken — as they try to navigate their own fates. Johnson is trying to prove that he can stick and thrive in the NFL as a 5-foot-10, 165-pound wideout who has “made it further than a lot of people thought he was going to make it,” as Nix proudly put it.

Nix is trying to prove that he can carry a franchise and a city with the Broncos’ Super Bowl window thrust wide open.

Nix tells Johnson, privately, to be a sponge, to keep his mentality the same. And Johnson tells anyone who’ll listen, publicly, that his brother in Denver will be great.

“Everyone gets in the NFL for the first time, and they struggle a little bit, yeah,” Johnson said of Nix. “Let (him) get the hang of it, and the world is his. He’s one of those guys that … he wants to figure it out. And when he figures it out, I mean, Lord help us all.”