Bo Nix made his NFL debut as the Denver Broncos met with the Seattle Seahawks in Week 1 of the regular season. Head coach Sean Payton opened up on what he saw from his rookie quarterback during his first appearance and insisted other key elements of the team’s gameplan were to blame.
Lumen Field is one of the toughest stadiums to play at in the NFL. When the Denver Broncos decided on Nix to make his professional debut in such a hostile environment the team knew the risk they were taking. The experiment did not go to plan as the Broncos fell 26-20 to the Seahawks. However, Payton made it clear the blame for the loss did not fall on Bo Nix’s shoulders.
“We’ve got to evaluate the run plan and why it wasn’t as effective as we would like,” Payton said shortly after the game. “It’s going to be hard to (play) quarterback, period, if that’s the best we can do running the ball. 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. So not nearly good enough.“
The Broncos had 25 carries but recorded only 99 rushing yards. Establishing the ground game is pivotal for any team’s success through the air. With a debuting rookie QB at the helm it is paramount for the rushing attack to have success, so with their poor performance the offensive line and runningbacks left Nix out to dry in the Broncos loss to start the NFL season.
Bo Nix #10 of the Denver Broncos attempts a pass during the first quarter against the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field on September 08, 2024 in Seattle, Washington.
Payton has not lost faith in Nix
Making the jump from college football to the NFL is no easy task. A quick look around the young QBs who entered the league this week will tell you just that. Despite Bo Nix’s longer experience at the college level, he was still expected to look a bit raw in his first start and would take time to acclimate to all the intangibles of professionalism.
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However, Sean Payton had no worries with what he saw from Nix in his first game at Seattle. What is more, he actually liked the attitude with which Nix performed.
“I think part of being a young player is he’s fairly confident. I don’t want to say kid, but, yeah, I felt the whole time, he was into it, competing. We just got to be better around him and that’s my impressions from just watching it without looking at the tape.”
What’s next for Nix and the Broncos?
The Broncos fell to an 0-1 record and are already behind the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs in their division standings. As Sean Payton and his team will look to recover the lost ground, they will face one of the league’s best defenses in what will be Nix’s toughest challenge on his young NFL career.
Next Sunday, the Broncos will be back at Denver where they’ll host the Pittsburgh Steelers. Mike Tomlin and Sean Payton are both among the top-20 NFL head coaches with the most wins in history. So when these two meet, and they did plenty of times, it is always a strategic battle.
The Steelers defense comes off an impressive match against the Falcons, in which T.J. Watt looked in mid-season form. The Broncos must contain Watt, or Bo Nix will have another ‘welcome to the NFL’ moment in Week 2.
