Bo Nix had a difficult debut, but so did his ensemble.
For Bo Nix and the Denver Broncos, the reality of life for — and with — a young quarterback hit them with more ferocity than any of the licks delivered by the Seattle Seahawks here Sunday.
There will be some eggs broken on the way to making this omelet. And when it’s done, no one knows exactly how it’s going to taste.
Putting too much meaning on Nix’s performance in the 26-20 loss Sunday would be fruitless. All one has to to do is look back at C.J. Stroud’s debut for the Houston Texans last year against a Baltimore Ravens defense conducted by Mike Macdonald — the same defensive play caller who now guides the Seattle Seahawks — for evidence of how a young quarterback can look flummoxed one week, only to be fabulous the next.
But there’s no denying that 3.3 yards per attempt was piddling. That’s a poor average per rushing attempt, let alone for anything through the air. The offense relies on rhythm and timing; neither were evident Sunday.
And for a quarterback whose success equation involves precision and good decision-making, he was off-target more than anyone would like, and threw a pair of interceptions — including one into a thicket of three defenders in the fourth quarter.
Furthermore, Nix and the offense appeared a tick slow from start to finish.
For some players, it’s a matter of needing to adjust to the rapid pace of the real thing. Which stands to reason; every preseason-game snap Nix played was against second- or third-teamers.
“It was different. They got after us a lot of the game,” Nix said. “We were able to move the ball there at the end, but yeah, I thought they had good team speed. They rallied in the football. They made open-field tackles, and that’s usually the sign of a good defense. So hat’s off to them.”
It’s the sign of a good Seattle defense that might have a chance to return the Seahawks to their long-held identity. But it’s also a sign of a Broncos offense that lacked a dynamic element. Jaleel McLaughlin has quickness, but struggled to break through the defense. Home-run threat Marvin Mims Jr. started, but was targeted just once.
The Broncos plodded; the Seahawks flew. The eventual result was predictable, kept close only by a superhuman defensive performance for 30 minutes.
THE TWO PILLARS OF SUPPORT NEEDED PROVED LACKING
In April and again last Friday, Sean Payton pointed to how a defense and a ground game can provide twin columns of support for a young quarterback trying to find his way.
Payton specifically mentioned both of those aspects of the game when asked Friday about how he thought his methodology could help Nix avoid some of the booby traps that ensnare young quarterbacks.
The defense stood its ground well in the first half; at halftime, its only true flub was a blitz of Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith that left the passer with enough time to identify man coverage on the back end and take off for a 34-yard scoring scamper that brought back memories of Sam Darnold’s traipse through the Broncos defense on a Thursday night in East Rutherford, N.J. nearly four years ago.
But in the second half, it collapsed. Seattle accelerated its pre-snap tempo and reverted to the basics of its attack: power running from Kenneth Walker II and judicious shots from Smith to his stellar wide receivers. They picked at No. 2 cornerback Riley Moss more as the game went on, and while Moss didn’t yield huge windows, the gaps were enough to exploit.
And as for the running game, well, a 3.2-yards-per-carry average for the Broncos’ running backs won’t cut it. The struggles to run led the Broncos to completely abandon the ground game after halftime; of their 31 second-half snaps on offense, just seven were designed handoffs to running backs; the rest were scrambles and passes as the Broncos’ deficit grew thanks to 17 consecutive Seattle points.
FOR BO NIX CRITICS, THIS GAME VALIDATED THEIR VIEWPOINTS
For those who castigated the college film of Bo Nix for featuring too many dump-offs, checkdowns and screen passes, the maiden voyage of the Oregon quarterback confirmed their beliefs. Most of Nix’s passes were within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage in either direction.
That was borne out by the production of two of Denver’s pass-catching leaders Sunday.
On the positive side, Devaughn Vele caught 8 passes, the most for a Broncos rookie in his first game since Eddie Royal in 2008. But on the other hand, Vele’s average of 4.9 yards per reception made him just the second player in team history — and the first since Brandon Marshall on Dec. 27, 2009 — to average fewer than 5 yards a catch when grabbing at least 6 passes in a game.
Running back Jaleel McLaughlin caught 5 passes for a single yard. No NFL player has had so few yards on so many receptions since December 2009.
Last year, the Broncos had 44 explosive pass plays — gaining at least 20 yards — an average of 2.6 per game. Sunday, they had just one such play. They closed the 2023 season with a streak of 7-straight games in which they had at least two explosive pass plays a game; that ended Sunday.
For this Broncos offense to work, it will rely upon generating explosive plays through precise pass placement and game-breaking pass-catchers being able to capitalize. Both might reveal themselves in the coming weeks. Neither were evident on Sunday.
The Bo Nix Show clearly needs more rehearsals. But the supporting actors have as far to go as the lead.
