Good morning, Broncos Country!
Everyone, just freakin’ relax on the QB play, will you? The second question at yesterday’s presser with Sean Payton was wondering if the head coach had considered replacing Bo Nix.
What are you even talking about?
I’m a big fan of Jarrett Stidham as our backup. If Nix goes down, he’s a very capable QB who knows Payton’s system (and that’s something!) and has enough experience to not be completely overwhelmed.
But come on.
Benching your starter when the entire offense (and the offensive coaching staff,
mind you) is underperforming, is as close to knee-jerk as you can get. Nix is the starter, and struggling against a top-ranked defense is no reason to put in a backup who will likely fare no better, will probably fare worse, and will kill whatever morale is left with an offense that knows it has to do better and that one player is not the problem.
Not the only problem anyway.
Payton had a lot more patience than I would have with the benching question.
“To answer your question, no. He’s going to become the byproduct of all the finer things that get improved,” Payton said, noting that better play from the O-line, better run-pass balance and better run game performance overall will go a long way in helping Nix. “That’s our jobs as coaches here. We talked after the game about we’re excited to get that win, and yet at the same time find that improvement we need in all areas. So, it starts with all of us.”
Payton also played down that Nix was suffering from any mental hurdles after coming back from injury.
“This is a tough league. We hit every aspect, and I think that’s one of the things that attracted us to Bo in the beginning is we had seen his ability to climb through adversity,” Payton added. “It’s not just Bo that feels that. Right now, offensively, I feel that, our players feel that and we’ll improve.”
Immediately following the Broncos’ win over the Seahawks — and the ensuing meltdown from Ryan Fitzpatrick that provided great TV drama for a day — Tim Jenkins spoke the real truth.
If anything, Broncos Country should be encouraged that this team is winning in spite of its underperforming offense. And he also pointed out several instances where just because the play didn’t develop as planned or designed, it didn’t mean it was due to poor QB play.
And in response to Fitzpatrick’s primary criticism that Nix wasn’t “playing competitive football” because he didn’t get a first down one-on-one versus a 250-pound linebacker, Jenkins was all over it.
“Would I love to see Nix make the linebacker miss one-on-one and get a first down? Sure. Who wouldn’t? Do I think that’s a fair criticism in the National Football League that a quarterback didn’t make a linebacker miss one-on-one? No,” he said. “That’s potentially the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day. And I have five kids 9 and under, so I hear dumb stuff all day long.”
Ease up, Broncos Country. There’s a lot to fix, but they’ll get it done.
