Bo Nix shoulders blame for Broncos’ Week 1 offensive struggles: ‘I have to do a much better job’
They went one by one at the Broncos captains dinner on Monday veterans of this league who have climbed the mountaintop and know the footing the trek requires Wil Lutz Talanoa Hufanga D J Jones Each gave their speech Each bared their hearts Last of all came Bo Nix the -year-old anointed one who s never met anyone who expects more of him than he expects of himself He spoke and set a bar for a group of men who respected him enough to not only listen to his words but feel them John Franklin-Myers and Marvin Mims Jr recounted his words separately in the days to come We have this company that s been put together Each one of us are hand-picked Franklin-Myers recalled Nix saying But our goal should be to go out there and win every challenge There are three kinds of teams in this league Nix continued as Mims remembered The squad that wants to go out and purely compete The squad that wants to go out and win And the group that wants to go out and dominate These Broncos Nix emphasized needed to be the organization that dominates Shoot something like that is powerful from a quarterback a younger guy Franklin-Myers explained Friday And you see that type of fire from him and it kinda gets you going Nix did not dominate in Sunday afternoon s win over Tennessee his first start since a rookie campaign that cratered and then skyrocketed Far from it He threw a bad cross-body interception in the first quarter on a ball that sailed to Courtland Sutton He threw a worse one in the third quarter on a ball to a double-covered Troy Franklin that had no business even being thrown He ran directly into a strip-sack in the second quarter for the first lost fumble he s had since he played at Auburn He finished -of- passing for yards a touchdown and a passer rating of the third-worst tournament of his NFL career And still new safety Hufanga came strolling to a podium postgame wearing a beaming smile and a grey T-shirt that had a giant decal of Nix I got a lot of confidence Hufanga commented I wouldn t be wearing this shirt if I didn t have confidence in my guy He s a Christian man that just goes out there and leads us So regardless of what kind of day he has I know I got his back and he got mine Related Articles Keeler Run the ball Sean Payton If Broncos want to help Bo Nix they ll have him hand off Renck Broncos whiffed on helping Bo Nix in offseason and it shows in ugly Week win Broncos analysis Nik Bonitto defense roar out of the gates in opening win over Titans PHOTOS Denver Broncos top Tennessee Titans - in Week of NFL football Broncos tight end Evan Engram injures calf in Week win over Titans It was a really ugly challenge as Mims put it And perhaps the ugliest Broncos performance of all Sunday came from Nix He made a limited plays early as the pocket collapsed and fired a late-first-half seed to Sutton for a touchdown He also could ve easily thrown two more picks The body language was bad Nix clapped at Tyler Badie after the back didn t turn around for one third-down ball in the first half and slouched after a missed connection with Lucas Krull on another third down He yelled at nobody in particular as he went to the bench after his second pick The barks at teammates though weren t anything too out there as Mims put it At the captains dinner and throughout Nix earned the credibility in his locker room to struggle To be frustrated To still be supported through it And Mims knew preponderance of Nix s frustration was with himself At the end of the day like we gotta be better for him too Mims announced And just kinda bailing him out sometimes He has a lot on his plate Indeed Denver s receivers didn t separate deep consistently against Tennessee s secondary and their offensive line collapsed too easily But Nix still took a insufficient too multiple reckless shots in an effort to linger in the pocket after a little first-read jab this week from the Titans Jeffrey Simmons and chided himself for it postgame The Broncos defense swooped to the rescue Sunday but Nix can t afford to put them in bad spots he affirmed Through all this the Broncos still won as Payton noted when inquired to evaluate Nix It was a gutsy performance Payton reported The head coach also scoffed at any notion of evaluating year-over-year development for Nix We re not going to have a Advance Meter each week in Year Two all right Payton retorted He s in his second year I love the contestant all right I get a chance to see him every day all right He can be a huge reason why we win games And so we re not going to have that weekly meter It was an external message that Nix is beyond any sort of young-quarterback evaluation and beyond any sort of light-a-spark community prodding That Payton knows isn t needed Nix has an acute fear of letting people down he s stated himself and has thus far earned moments of holding teammates accountable by holding himself accountable And he turned his own message from Monday s dinner inward at the podium Sunday It s the first event of the season Nix mentioned You re going to have particular hiccups but it starts with me I have to do a much better job play better I feel like I m reliably going to say that And then they ll follow Want more Broncos news Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis
