Bo Nix searches for the beauty behind the madness of his rookie debut.

The Broncos starting quarterback doesn’t dwell on the two interceptions or throwing for only 138 yards on 42 attempts in the loss to Seattle in Week 1. Nix takes pride in the good moments–even if those were few–with the hope of a better outcome on Sunday against the Steelers.

“It was a great game of learning,” said an optimistic Nix after Wednesday’s practice. “I think the film was positive. When you (go) back, you see there were opportunities and we just gotta capitalize in a few more areas.”

Two scoring drives on Sunday is one of the reasons Nix is confident that he can produce better results moving forward. In the final seconds of the second quarter, Nix made a back shoulder pass to wide receiver Josh Reynolds for a 25-yard gain to set up a 45-yard field goal from kicker Wil Lutz.

The Broncos were desperate for points in the fourth quarter when Nix engineered a 7-play, 54-yard scoring drive. Positioned at Seattle’s 14, Nix completed a 10-yard pass to wide receiver Courtland Sutton on a slant route before scrambling for a 4-yard touchdown to cut the deficit to 26-20 with 2:17 left in regulation.

“Those moments were critical in the game,” Nix said. “They provided points and big opportunities. Our two two-minute drives actually turned into 10 points. We just have to find more ways to do that the rest of the time.”

Nix’s accuracy was questionable, as he was off-target on a handful of throws. But his mobility was impressive. He finished five carries for 35 yards (seven yards per attempt), drawing praise from Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin.

“I was somewhat surprised by his quarterback mobility,” Tomlin told reporters on Tuesday. “I thought he was highly effective.”

Across the league, rookie quarterbacks had their fair share of growing pains in Week 1. Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, the first overall pick, went 14 for 29 with 93 yards and a passer rating of 55.7 in the win over Tennessee.

Commanders’ Jayden Daniels, the second overall pick, had the best performance out of the three quarterbacks, completing 17 of 24 passes for 184 yards while rushing for 88 and two scores.

That’s not an excuse for Nix’s performance. It’s a reminder to have patience.

Inside the visiting locker room in Seattle, Sutton approached Nix to offer words of encouragement. He reminded his teammate of the constant momentum swings in the NFL, and not every game is going to be his masterpiece.

“Bo is a student of the game,” Sutton said. “I’m sure he has his things that he took from the game that he wants back and things that he thought he did well that he wants to continue to progress on. There’s a lot of hope and promise moving forward.”

Sutton said Nix did a good job of staying composed in a hostile environment and handling the flow of the game. Head coach Sean Payton shared similar sentiments. From an operational standpoint, Payton said the offense ran smoothly.

Nix said nothing surprised him about his debut. He thought the offense was efficient with the play calls in the huddle and didn’t let the crowd noise affect them.

“We just have to be louder on the cadence, but I thought other than that, guys lined up correctly (and) we didn’t (really) have mental errors,” Nix said. “On the road like that, that’ll save you a lot of extra yards.”

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The Denver official tasked with valuing the city’s real estate said Tuesday that office building valuations will likely bifurcate this cycle, with top-tier properties holding steady while less-desirable properties see significant declines.

“I think we’ll see a spreading of value unlike I’ve ever seen in Denver, going all the way from downtown to the Tech Center — Cherry Creek seems to be immune to anything, so that might not happen here — but that’s kind of what we’re looking at, is really a two- if not three-tier market,” Assessor Keith Erffmeyer said.

Erffmeyer made the comment at BusinessDen’s “The Future of Office” event, where he and five real estate executives discussed the office sector’s status and outlook. The event was held at the Clayton Hotel & Members Club in Cherry Creek.

County assessors in Colorado value real estate every two years, and the figure directly translates to what an owner pays in property taxes. New valuations go out in May of odd years, and are based on the two-year period ending the previous June. The next notices of valuation will go out in May 2025.

This is the third valuation cycle since the pandemic hit in 2020. But Erffmeyer noted the previous two cycles had few data points to go off when valuing office properties.

“In 2021, our data value was June of 2020, so we were barely three months into the pandemic at that time,” he said. “And frankly, we didn’t know what the world was going to look like, what offices were going to look like, what schools were going to look like, what anything was going to look like. We did our best, quite frankly, to take the sales that preceded Covid and adjust them down for the uncertainty, the risk.”

The 24-story Denver Club building at 17th and Glenarm sold in late 2022 for $52.80 a square foot. (BusinessDen file)

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The next cycle didn’t offer much more, as continued uncertainty around the sector resulted in few building transactions.

That’s changed somewhat in the last couple years. Buildings such as downtown’s Denver Club and The 410 have sold for cheap, while structures at 1401 Lawrence and Platte Street’s Riverview have fetched more respectable sums. The Denver Tech Center is also seeing transactions.

Erffmeyer joined the Denver assessor’s office as an intern in 1994 and assumed the top job in 2014. He noted he’s worked to value properties through the Great Recession and the dot-com bust.

“And this revaluation might be the toughest of all of them, just because there’s so many almost conflicting and just dissonance in terms of what we see in terms of sale prices — just in downtown, much less throughout, in my case, Denver, and, speaking for the other assessors, throughout the metro area,” he said.

“Prime” buildings — which tend to be newer and have top-tier locations — will “probably be just fine in terms of value, maybe even see some increases in terms of value,” Erffmeyer said. But as buildings age, “there comes a tipping point somewhere in there where it’s not a prime building anymore.”

“And that’s when we start seeing this kind of bifurcation,” he said. “I’ve heard falling off a cliff, things like that in terms of value. And we read about sales transactions at less than $100 a foot, which just blows my mind when we have warehouses selling for more than $100 a foot.”