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What You Grow in the Dark: The Weight of Determination, Devotion and Deliverance with Nik Bonitto
- Christina Winnegar
- 8 hours ago
- 12 min read
Interview by Christina Winnegar | December 12, 2025
There is a certain silence that lives in the seconds before a dream shifts into a reality, one that carries the weight of every sacrifice, every delayed opportunity, every shift in mindset that leads to the gradual build of the very high that only comes once in a lifetime.
The one that marks this story began in a living room in South Florida, the TV humming, while the Denver Broncos were on the clock. That is when the silence broke, and the incoming call from the general manager of the Broncos, George Paton, changed the trajectory of Nik Bonitto’s story. The room, packed full with his support system, erupted seconds later when the announcer declared Bonitto as the 64th overall pick in the second round of the 2022 National Football League (NFL) Draft – a day forever marked on his calendar as the new beginning, a chapter to inspire younger generations.
“I was nonstop crying for a little bit,” he remembered. “Just having all [of] my family there, it meant everything.”
From the outside looking in, that night might have appeared to be the beginning; for him, it was a payoff. The culmination of a childhood formed by humility, a grind that never left his spirit, and a belief that followed him like a shadow even when the path demanded patience. It was the same devotion that carried him from his days in Fort Lauderdale to the University of Oklahoma, then to Denver, Colorado, where the workload increased and alongside it, the spotlight brightened. The ultimate purpose behind it grew clearer.
Nothing about Bonitto’s rise came easily, and nothing was handed to him. Everything that mattered was built quietly, long before the spotlight ever found him.
Long before Empower Field at Mile High, before the Casa Bonitto chants, before Denver’s defense shaped its identity around him and his counterparts, there was Fort Lauderdale. Heat glazing over youth practice fields, neighborhood noise folding into pass-rush drills and a family that ensured talent never outran dedication.
“My family always kept me grounded,” Bonitto said. “I was always kind of a big deal down there, but my parents made sure I was always focused on getting better in everything I did.”
Football found him early. His father signed him up before most kids learned what a playbook was. However, the love for the game, the part that stuck, developed on its own. Those early years of development were defined purely by repeated motions.
After school, he dropped his backpack and went straight into training, moving from practice into pass-rush drills that kept his eyes sharp and his commitment sharper. The repetition was a serious grind for him, but as Bonitto grew older, he wanted nothing more than to take football more seriously. The hours racked up as he leaned in more and prepared to step onto the field at St. Thomas Aquinas High School.
The rhythm carried him further than he could have imagined. It carried him to the University of Oklahoma, where new terrain brought harder lessons. It challenged him, and over time, that discipline became the strength that defined him.
Leaving the familiarity of South Florida for the uncertainty of Norman, Oklahoma meant trading comfort for growth. He arrived at the university undersized, behind older players, and facing a depth chart that valued action over potential.
“I ended up redshirting my freshman year, so it was hard, seeing a lot of guys in my class being out there playing and stuff, and I’m just having to wait my turn,” Bonitto recalled. “But I just kept working and continuously trying to get better. So when I did get my opportunity, I was ready.”
His freshman year became an early turning point, giving him time to study older players and find the group of teammates who would become his family – a routine that hardened his mindset and solidified the understanding that development is not always instant. Nevertheless, the moment everything shifted for Bonitto did not come during that redshirt year. It came later, unexpectedly.
“The moment I knew I could really take it somewhere was honestly not even to college,” he said. “I had a game-winning interception play, and it gave me so much confidence going forward. And it was like, dang, I can really do this.”
It was one defensive snap that rewired his entire mentality around the sport he always loved. A moment that turned dedication into certainty.
Bonitto ended his college career with production that became routine. Per the University of Oklahoma records, across 39 games, he collected 117 tackles, 32 tackles for loss, and 18.5 sacks. He finished his college career by ranking 13th in the Oklahoma Sooners program’s overall history and third among linebackers.
A career built on perseverance that followed him straight into draft night, where everything he had been working for finally called his name.
The Denver Broncos drafted Bonitto as the second-round pick, No. 64 overall, in the 2022 NFL Draft. The dream came true, but the role was not glamorous yet. There were plays to learn, a system to master, and a defense to slot within to fit the entirety of a new team, a new culture.
“I may not be where I want to be when I first get somewhere,” he said. “But I just keep getting better… just working on myself, seeing how I get better and make it undeniable to where I would have to be on the field.”
His rookie year demanded the same steadiness he had relied on before, a familiar cycle of learning, adjusting and staying ready. The stretch of waiting shifted in moments, not in gradual momentum, but in plays that cracked open opportunities, sparking a new beginning – the origin of Casa Bonitto.
On Dec. 2, 2024, the Denver Broncos faced. Cleveland Browns. Fourth quarter: Browns are driving offensively, Jameis Winston scanning downfield. The stadium hung in that anticipatory moment of quiet that precedes something significant on the field. Bonitto read the play a beat early, not by luck or by accident, but by study and instinct folding together. He broke on the ball, snatched it clean, and suddenly ran 71 yards of open field stretched in front of him.
The crowd did not erupt all at once; it rose like a wave chasing him down the sideline as he outran everyone in white. The second he crossed the goal line, the singular read, flipped the trajectory of his professional career forever.
On Dec. 15, 2024, the Colts tried a lateral-heavy trick play designed to confuse the defensive line. Instead, the ball was thrown perfectly before Bonitto scooped it in stride and intercepted the pass. Fifty yards disappeared beneath his cleats as he sprinted into the end zone again, this time with a different kind of validation. One not to himself or his team on the sideline, but to the rest of the world, showing who Nik Bonitto is.
Those plays, only thirteen days apart, were not random highlights. They were proof – the moment his game stopped looking promising and started looking inevitable every time he stepped on the field.
Furthermore, when he is asked about when he knew he could really do it at this level, he did not pick the touchdowns, the headlines, or the chants. He went straight to that moment in Chicago from Oct 2023, before any of this.
“I had three sacks that game, and that was kind of the game where I’m like, wow, I can really do it at this level. And it just gave me so much confidence moving forward,” Bonitto reflected.
The picks and the intercepted trick play came later, but they were built on that night, when his newfound confidence finally caught up to his ability – long before the league realized what it was seeing.
It was not just the stat sheet that shifted when Bonitto leveled up that season; the locker room felt it first. Inside the locker room, his performance did more than energize fans; it reshaped how his teammates talked about him.
Broncos’ linebacker Jonathon Cooper, who has lined up opposite Bonitto for years, spoke about Bonitto’s rise with something closer to admiration than analysis.
“We’ve been doing this together for a long time, and we push each other,” Cooper said. “We all know Nik [Bonitto] is an extreme talent… I’m happy to be out here with him, honestly. We’re just going to keep pushing each other [and] getting better. That’s my brother.”
Cooper did not hesitate to go further.
“I think he’s the best pass rusher. I’ve said this before, he’s been on top of this league for a while. His instincts are off the charts, his get off, the way he plays the game, the way he approaches. He’s smarter than what you give him credit for. You live right and you do things right, the success comes. I couldn’t be happier, more proud of my guy, honestly,” he expressed.
For the team, results may be what takes center stage. But to Cooper, the admiration comes from the work he sees daily behind the scenes – the invisible grind when the stadium lights go dark, and the cameras are off.
“He’s been working every day. He wants to be the best he can be, and that’s something we all carry with ourselves…He’s becoming an even better player. He knows he’s not just satisfied with what he did last year. He knows he can become better. So the work’s just getting started,” Cooper said.
On the back end of the defense, the sentiment echoed. Broncos’ Cornerback Pat Surtain II, one of the league's best, noticed the growth, too.
“You can just tell, Year 4, he’s developed,” Surtain said. “Last year was his coming out year. This year is even scarier because now you can tell he’s growing into himself a little bit more, he’s more confident going off the edge. Teams have to gameplan around him… He’s just going to cause havoc each and every play.”
However, what impressed him was not just the production; it was the preparation.
“It’s pretty impressive when you see him really study his opponent,” Surtain said. “Studying the tackles he’s going up against, studying offenses because I feel like in his head he’s picturing how he can make this play at the end of the day. Once you hone in the film study, the game slows down for you a lot, and I think that’s what allows him to get to this point right now for sure.”
Inside the building, the coaches observed it the same way. Broncos’ Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph saw another layer, the humility that is Bonitto, one that does not disappear, no matter how many or how few sacks pile up on the stats sheet.
“He hasn’t changed,” Joseph said. “You can’t tell after a game if he’s gotten two sacks or none.”
And then he described the kind of thing only coaches notice, the quiet sacrifices for the team.
“What we asked him to do last week [2024-25 Week 11] was rush together and not rush past the quarterback,” Joseph said. “That is hard to do as an NFL rusher… His unselfishness speaks to our entire defensive line… That just speaks to the guys’ unselfish play.”
Broncos’ Head Coach Sean Payton, who sees Bonitto in the context of decades of edge players, highlighted the instincts beneath the production. “I do think he has good instincts. He can get his arms up, tip a ball. I think sometimes that comes a little bit easier to others than it does for some.”
As the production grew, so did the responsibility. Bonitto noticed the shift in the room.
“As a rookie, I was just trying to be a sponge,” he said. “But now that I’m starting to make plays… guys are starting to look at me as a role model and a leader.”
While his role was changing on the field and off, another purpose was growing. One that had nothing to do with sacks or contracts and lives far from Empower Stadium.
Because for every sack, every rep at practice, every film session where he studied the angles of tackles important to the league, there were hallways of elementary schools, community centers and food distribution sites where his presence meant something entirely different.
The first real glimpse of his impact under his own foundation came on Sept. 23, 2025, when Bonitto stood inside the TreVista at Horace Mann Community Hub. The Bonitto Family Foundation had just launched, partnering with Denver Public Schools for a food-distribution event. Tables lined with groceries, kids running between volunteers and families leaving with bags that made the week feel lighter.
It did not feel like a headline moment. It felt like home to a bigger purpose.
“The mission is just to give back any way we can,” he said. “Emotionally, financially… helping out and trying to provide families with opportunities to grow and be loved.”
He had seen that need before, not as a donor, but as a kid. He remembers the night when his mother worked two jobs while driving him and his brother to practices, games, and training sessions, struggling to do it all between the two households.
“Seeing how my mom struggled financially and having to work two jobs just to support me and my brother… If there might be a family out there in a situation like that, where the mom or dad might not be able to help as much or can’t help as much as they want to. I would want to be in a position one day to where, if that was the case, or any other type of scenario, where I would want to be able to help out and give those kids the opportunity or provide the family with the opportunity to do what they want to do and have the love and support that they need,” Bonitto said.
That internal promise became the axis for everything that followed.
Because the foundation did not begin in a boardroom, it began in the living room in South Florida on draft night, when he cried with joy as his time finally came. It began in the moments when he was redshirted at Oklahoma, waiting behind older players. It began in every stretch when readiness was the only thing he could control.
And in Denver, the purpose to do more, give more, did not shrink to one organization.
Before the foundation had a name, Bonitto’s work was already appearing. He partnered with the Food Bank of the Rockies, supporting more than 200 families facing food insecurity, hosted kids from the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Denver for a holiday shopping spree, and visited local communities in Denver and his hometown, hosting youth camps and providing guidance for children dreaming of following in his footsteps.
His teammates say it plainly. They see the work, the intention, the humility behind the athlete.
“He’s a great teammate, he’s a great dude. You live right and you do things right, success comes. So for everything that he’s doing, more power to him. I couldn’t be happier…more proud of my guy, honestly,” said Cooper.
Those comments recognize who he is when he walks off the field, the cleats are hung and he is no longer Casa Bonitto but just Nik. The part that lingers in his story, the part that paints a bigger picture than football, is what all of these chapters, cumulations of lows and triumphs, have shaped him into.
A son who honors the sacrifices that lifted him. A teammate who measures success by those standing beside him. A foundation-builder who gives families dignity instead of charity. A young man who knows the difference between achievement and purpose.
“God put me on this earth to do things,” he said. “Whether it’s football or helping people, I’m just trying to do it.”
What a wonderfully written piece. I honestly didn't know who Nik was but after reading this, I can't wait to follow his career growth! Thank you for enlightening me!