Broncos Super Bowl champ outlines biggest difference in Bo Nix's debut from Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels
Bo Nix, like his fellow rookie QBs Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels, struggled to get meaningful passing yards in his NFL debut. Of the three, only the Chicago Bears' first overall pick won a game, largely thanks to kicker Cairo Santos and the defense.
Still, former Denver Broncos guard Mark Schlereth has an interesting notion about Nix's performance in his team's 20-26 loss at the Seattle Seahawks. On Tuesday's episode of his podcast "The Stinkin Truth," Schlereth said:
"I will say the difference between Jayden Daniels, Bo Nix and Caleb Williams was that Bo Nix didn’t have one guy make a play. ... When you watched the coaches' film, and we heard Sean Payton come out post-game after they reviewed (it), he basically called his team out and said, "Our guys have to make some plays."' [25:29]
A summary of the game showed some truth in that. Before Nix rushed into the endzone late in the fourth quarter, all the Broncos' points had come from either field goals by kicker Wil Lutz or safeties.
Bo Nix not to blame for Broncos' loss to Seahawks, says coach Sean Payton
One can be forgiven for thinking that Bo Nix is to blame for that loss in Seattle. After all, he threw two interceptions against no touchdowns and did not rush into the endzone until the game was all but decided.
However, for coach Sean Payton, that is not the case. Instead, he went towards the failure of the run game.
“We’ve got to evaluate the run plan and why it wasn’t as effective as we would like," Payton said. "It’s going to be hard to (play) quarterback if that’s the best we can do. I don’t know how many balls we dropped, and so I’ve said that before, for any quarterback playing, we’ve got to be more effective running the football.“
Next up for the Broncos are the Pittsburgh Steelers, who boast one of the most potent pass rushers and sack machines in the league in TJ Watt. Right guard Quinn Meinerz has thus implored the offensive line to be better:
“We’ve got to give him a cleaner picture with some more time so he can start settling in quicker and feel safe in the pocket,” Meinerz said.
The Steelers vs Broncos game kickoffs on Sunday at 4:25 p.m. ET. Spero Dedes, Adam Archuleta and Aditi Kinkhabwala will call the game for CBS.