In his Denver Broncos debut, rookie quarterback Bo Nix lived up to the billing. The billing being that in college, he had made his living from screens and checkdowns. His “average depth of target” at Oregon—basically how far downfield Nix’s receivers were when he threw to them—was a near FBS-low 6.8 yards. Though he set the NCAA single-season completion percentage record last year, it helped that more than a quarter of his passes went behind the line of scrimmage.
For comparison’s sake, fellow Heisman finalists Michael Penix Jr. and Jayden Daniels threw behind the line of scrimmage on 16 percent and 13 percent of their passes, respectively, per Pro Football Focus. There is nothing wrong with checking it down from time to time; many young quarterbacks could stand to do it more. But generally in football, you want to push the ball past the line of scrimmage to gain yardage, so that your team can score some points, perhaps via a touchdown.
The Broncos defense tried their best to spare Nix this responsibility Sunday afternoon against the Seattle Seahawks—or maybe they were inspired by him. On their side of the ball, they actually can score points by making plays behind the line of scrimmage. At the half, Denver had cobbled together 13 points by unusual means: two safeties and three field goals. Meanwhile Nix picked up right where he left off in college, recording his first two NFL completions on throws behind the line. His final passing chart looked like this:
To save you some dot counting, that’s 12 attempts thrown 10 or more yards past the line of scrimmage. The offense’s reliance on quick-hitters was probably for the best. Four of Nix’s longer passes were caught; two by Broncos, two by Seahawks. His forays downfield went so poorly that one throw in fourth quarter immediately prompted CBS color commentator Adam Archuleta to say “Oh no,” before the cameraperson could finish panning over to the Seattle secondary, where the pass was intercepted by Riq Woolen.
The Broncos managed just 99 total rushing yards on 25 carries, and 35 of those yards came from Nix scrambles. Head coach Sean Payton pointed to the lifeless ground game and some receiver drops when assessing his rookie starter’s performance in the 26-20 loss. “It’s going to be hard to play quarterback, period, if that’s the best we can do running the ball,” Payton said postgame. But the causal chain might work the other way, too: Passing sets up the run, and the Seahawks defense didn’t have to take the Broncos’ pass game very seriously.
In fairness to Nix, neither of the other rookie quarterbacks starting Sunday made the job seem much easier. Caleb Williams celebrated his first NFL win entirely on the strength of the Bears defense and special teams, the only units to score a touchdown in their 24-17 victory over the Titans. Williams actually swiped the “checkdown merchant” title for himself, with 3.2 yards per attempt to Nix’s 3.3 and a total of just 93 passing yards. Jayden Daniels put up more impressive numbers in his Commanders debut—besting the other two with 184 whole passing yards—but lost, 37-20, to the Buccaneers.
So, in Week 1, the rookie quarterbacks looked like rookie quarterbacks. Playing football’s hardest position and facing one of the league’s sharpest defensive minds on the road, Nix should probably be graded on a curve. Consider it a win if next week the TV analyst can wait for all of Nix’s plays to end before declaring any of them a disaster.
