The Broncos won on Thursday night, beating the defending Super Bowl champions in overtime. But the victory comes with a major asterisk; Denver\u2019s offense continues to be not good enough.<\/p>\n
As Ryan Fitzpatrick of Prime Video put it after the game, quarterback Bo Nix is not good enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cBo Nix is not playing competitively,\u201d Fitzpatrick said, growing increasingly animated as he went. \u201cIt\u2019s almost disrespectful to the quarterback position how he\u2019s playing quarterback right now. . . . He has no trust from his coach, he calls a screen play on third and eight. . . . Now they\u2019re in the locker room right now, they\u2019re excited. They won. He\u2019s not playing competitive football right now. . . . I can only imagine how Sean Payton feels. I mean, Sean Payton, [offensive coordinatpr] Davis Webb, everybody that blocks for him. He\u2019s not competing right now. And that\u2019s something that he\u2019s hung his hat on for the last two years. I don\u2019t know if he\u2019s still injured. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on. But it\u2019s not good enough. It\u2019s effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later in the postgame show, Fitzpatrick was given another chance to elaborate on his critique of Nix.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, there\u2019s no fire and there\u2019s no passion,\u201d Fitzpatrick said. \u201cAnd that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ve got to be yelling at guys on the sideline or inspiring in the huddle. You can do it with your play as well. And I just don\u2019t see it. And I just think that he needs to be sat down and they need to tell him being a quarterback in the NFL is a very special thing. And right now he\u2019s taking it for granted. He is. And there\u2019s a lot of guys that have played this game that watch that game that think, \u2018That right there is garbage. That effort is garbage. That is not a quarterback in the NFL. We deserve better.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
For the game, Nix completed 17 of 27 passes for 107 yards, no touchdowns, and no interceptions. His passer rating was 71.1. Denver\u2019s offense gained only 168 yards. Seattle gained 353.<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen whether Payton will have anything to say publicly about Nix\u2019s play. Payton may have some pointed things to say privately \u2014 and if the issues continue, who knows what will happen?<\/p>\n
Because Nix is in his third season, whatever comes next will be critical. Nix will be eligible for a second contract after the season. <\/p>\n
And the Broncos\u2019 eventual options could be to either pay him market value or move on. Bot every team wants to kick the can or pay a mid-level contract to a guy who lands in the \u201caverage\u201d category. To win consistently and to chase championships, it\u2019s critical to have a guy who\u2019s playing like a franchise quarterback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Broncos won on Thursday night, beating the defending Super Bowl champions in overtime. But the victory comes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99],"class_list":["post-884020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}