Here’s the good news for the Denver Broncos: They defeated the Super Bowl champs in overtime Thursday night to improve to 4-2 on this young season.
That’s nothing to scoff at, by the way. Especially for a team that’s played a brutal schedule through the first six weeks. To come out of that gauntlet above .500 is a huge win.
Now, to the bad news …
Bo Nix might be horrible.
Fine. I’m being dramatic (sort of). Not horrible. But the Broncos — who fell one game short of the Super Bowl last season — have a serious Bo Nix problem right now. It was painfully obvious last night. It was a glaring hole in an otherwise good, talented football team.
I saw it sitting on my couch back at home. Sean Payton surely saw it on the sidelines given the watered-down calls. The receivers saw it because they were never, ever thrown the ball.
Most of all, former NFL QB Ryan Fitzpatrick saw it from his Amazon Prime chair on the sidelines.
Yikes:
“Bo Nix is not playing competitively. It’s almost disrespectful to the quarterback position how he’s playing football right now,” Fitzpatrick said before really digging in.
“I mean, first of all the guy doesn’t want to throw the ball (and) that’s fine. He’s throwing to the flats he’s throwing behind, but he has no trust from his coach. He calls a screen play on third and eight. Just run up and let the clock keep going. What does he do? He throws it away. Seattle gets the ball, they have a timeout, and then in overtime he’s got two chances to be competitive. The last one being a designed run for him to run, make somebody miss, and get a first down for your football team.
“Now, they’re in the locker room right now. They’re excited they won. He’s not playing competitive football right now.”
Goodness gracious. Just a wild rant here from Ryan Fitzpatrick. You could tell it even caught the rest of the crew off guard. Richard Sherman, whose been known to go on a rant or two over his career, was stunned.
Nobody saw this coming from Ryan Fitzpatrick.
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But you know what? He’s right. Nothing he said was wrong. Nothing. Watching Bo Nix last night was painful. The stats, frankly, were embarrassing.
Look at those two posts. Really look at them. Bo Nix not only refused to throw the ball down the field last night (17 of 27 for 107 yards), he didn’t even throw it BEYOND the line of scrimmage!
According to CBS researcher Doug Clawson, he currently ranks 701st out of 701 qualified quarterbacks over the last two decades in average pass length (4.9 air yards per attempt).
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That’s indescribably bad. It’s unfathomable. I watched Tua Tagovailoa dink and dunk for years in Miami. Bo Nix last night made Tua look like Dan Marino!
The Broncos had seven straight punts at one point. They had eight three-and-outs. Eight! It was painful to watch.
Was Fitzpatrick a bit harsh on Nix? I don’t think so. Some do. Perhaps Nix is still feeling the effects of the ankle injury from last January. He’s certainly acting like it, given he no longer even tries to run any more. That’s probably fair.
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Regardless, it was just horrendous quarterback play. There’s no sugarcoating it.
Fitzpatrick certainly didn’t.