Week 6 GDT Los Angeles Chargers at Denver

[AKRNA]

33 minutes ago, BroncoSojia said:

I'm tired of people blaming play calling before w/o even watching the all-22, because how could you even know if player are open or not all game if you don't have access to the tape? This is what fans reflexively do when their team's offense is struggling like ours. Maybe the plays are being drawn up well and Nix is not hitting open players?

 

So, a buddy of mine has season tickets on the 35, tucked up under the overhang of the 3rd deck. Great view of the whole field. He pretty much agrees with you.

[AnAngryAmerican]

6 hours ago, broncos_fan _from _uk said:

It’s almost like we’re saddled with the most dead space in history to go with 3 consecutive drafts missing our FRP. This was never going to be pretty but I’d be lying if I said I knew our rookie QB would be a close second in terms of rushing yards 1/3 of the season in. Sean and Bo have 3 years. 1 full season without the Russ cap hit. Here’s hoping for steady improvement

You think the Walmarts will give them 3 years? I think it’s this year and next to be honest. Now, that doesn’t means we have to make it to the AFCCG or something next year but I think there needs to be marked improvement and clearly ascending trend lines for them to give the Sean/Bo pairing a third year. 

[BroncoSojia]

22 minutes ago, Dbrog24 said:

We are bringing it up though because it was brought up in the broadcast and there are charts that show our guys get almost no separation on offense. I know you are super low on Bo but despite him being a rookie learning, he's still better than Russ was here. Having said that, I don't think that necessarily makes him our QBOTF, which is why it would be important to see the all-22 (which btw Jenkins and JT usually give a lot of praises for Bo that are more than just "running and occasional improv")

By all stats and metrics, Nix is just absolutely nonfunctional in structure. @BroncoBruin compared the situation to the Tebow season, which is apt. You can't build a consistent offense when your QB is averaging under 46 yards passing in the first half if you take out the Bucs game. And you can't always run up-tempo or hope that the opposing team goes into soft-zone coverages like the Chargers did yesterday. I know, I know, it's only been 6 games, but I haven't seen much of anything from Nix that has me hopeful, tbh.

Edited Monday at 06:27 PM by BroncoSojia

[AnAngryAmerican]

I think it’s important to recognize there isn’t just one thing holding this team back.

Yes, Sean’s play calling hasn’t given anyone delusions that’s he’s Andy Reid or Kyle Shanahan but it not the only reason the offense has struggled. Bo is a rookie, we know there will be an ebb and flow to his development, but there is enough there I don’t think we can say he’s a bust. We also haven’t seen what we’ve seen Williams or Daniels this year or from Stroud last year. It’s concerning but not time to panic.

the biggest problem is that we have next to no talent across the board the skill positions. Every skill position group sucks, like Ben said. 

The roster as a whole is seriously lacking, how many guys do we have who would be a one at their position on every other team? PS2 is it. Mark Schlereth, who knows a thing or two about OL play, blasted Quinn Meinerz on the radio today. Our DL has a couple guys who are decent, but there’s no Aaron Donald. Our EDGE room is a nice collection of Robins but there’s no Batman. 

We’re 3-3, we’re not the Vikings but we’re also not the Panthers. This team is severely lacking in so so so so so many ways. Rome wasn’t built in a day but I would like to see steady, even if not consistent, improvement over the 2/3 of the season that remains. 

Edited Monday at 06:34 PM by AnAngryAmerican

[champ11]

i think it's fair to be pretty disappointed in how Bo looks considering the experience he has and the age. i definitely want to give him time. but his accuracy, comfort in the pocket, and processing has been pretty disappointing for what we were hearing and expecting. so it goes. i'm sure we will see improvement as the season goes. his physical tools have looked better than expected IMO 

[BroncoSojia]

26 minutes ago, champ11 said:

i think it's fair to be pretty disappointed in how Bo looks considering the experience he has and the age. i definitely want to give him time. but his accuracy, comfort in the pocket, and processing has been pretty disappointing for what we were hearing and expecting. so it goes. i'm sure we will see improvement as the season goes. his physical tools have looked better than expected IMO 

And this is despite having most starts ever in college football at QB. He spent 5 years college, is 24 years old, and looks like a project QB in the NFL. 

[rcpbawler]

1 hour ago, BroncoSojia said:

I'm tired of people blaming play calling before w/o even watching the all-22, because how could you even know if player are open or not all game if you don't have access to the tape? This is what fans reflexively do when their team's offense is struggling like ours. Maybe the plays are being drawn up well and Nix is not hitting open players?

 

Most don't have access to all 22 but the broadcast brought it up a few times yesterday. 

Saw the Tim Jenkins breakdown. There were a couple of plays (one mesh concept that Bo got off of a second too soon and a deep crosser he never saw) he didn't read well but also some uninspired plays/concepts. Bo is definitely part of the problem with this offense but Sean and the offensive personnel are equally at fault imo.

[grizmo78]

After watching the Jenkins video I think AAA is spot on. There isn't one thing wrong with this team. We are a sum of our parts and all of our parts are mediocre. Our talent is mediocre, our play calling is mediocre, Bo is mediocre. We all knew this season was a development season so that is what we'll all be watching. Can Bo get better and improve some of his flaws (bailing on a clean pocket, footwork, accuracy down the field) or is this who he will always be. While there are some open players that he misses at times, the amount they are open by aren't wide open guys. They're NFL open but thats so tough for us to expect to hit on as often as we need to to have some semblance of consistency. Right now we don't have the talent, the play calling or the QB play (not that i expect that from a rookie) to make up for any mistakes no matter how small. All that said, there are some really good things we see from Bo and thats exciting. His arm talent is better than I expected (while also not fantastic), he doesn't take sacks and seems to understand situational football pretty well. Those are all things we never saw from Drew Lock or other failures we've had at the position the past decade. I can see this going either way. He proves he's able to make noticeable improvements in his flaws (likely biggest jump would need to happen over the offseason with his mechanics but hopefully we see some better pocket navigation throughout this year) OR his current flaws define him. Helpful context to keep in mind is that the only rookie QB we had a shot at beside Bo was Rattler so comparing Bo to Daniels, Maye, Williams, etc. is pretty moot considering we had not shot at any of them. This coming QB draft class looks pretty garbage too so might as well ride this out and see what comes of it by the end of next year and hopefully by then we've gotten some decent talent on this team with most of our cap space at our disposal.   

Edited Monday at 09:49 PM by grizmo78

[Dbrog24]

1 hour ago, grizmo78 said:

Our talent is mediocre, our play calling is mediocre, Bo is mediocre. We all knew this season was a development season so that is what we'll all be watching. Those are all things we never saw from Drew Lock or other failures we've had at the position the past decade. Helpful context to keep in mind is that the only rookie QB we had a shot at beside Bo was Rattler so comparing Bo to Daniels, Maye, Williams, etc. is pretty moot considering we had not shot at any of them. This coming QB draft class looks pretty garbage too so might as well ride this out and see what comes of it by the end of next year and hopefully by then we've gotten some decent talent on this team with most of our cap space at our disposal.   

I think these are such massive points. There really wasn't a realistic answer at QB for us this year or next year other than taking a chance on Bo. Our skill positions are next level bad compared to the rest of the league that dudes from the Raiders Forum were pointing out even when we had "the great" Hamler and Jeudy here. This just naturally results in mediocre offense let alone pairing it with a QB and coach also performing mediocre. I just don't see the point in all the people in the general forum (or at times here) making the comparisons to the other QBs taken or clowning the Broncos for "failing with Bo." 

It's also pretty crazy that we are watching mediocre and this is EASILY the best Broncos team I've seen post-Manning...shows how truly bad things have been here

[broncofan48]

If Bo doesn’t work out I hope he’s bad enough we can find a way to get Arch Manning in 2026

[BroncoSojia]

Filtering out garbage time = filtering out stats that occur when win probability is less than 10%

Edit and here's a chart when the win probability threshold is lowered to less than 4%

 

Edited Monday at 11:36 PM by BroncoSojia

[BroncoSojia]

double post

Edited Monday at 11:33 PM by BroncoSojia

[AnAngryAmerican]

2 hours ago, broncofan48 said:

If Bo doesn’t work out I hope he’s bad enough we can find a way to get Arch Manning in 2026

What’s interesting about that is the Manning Family will pick where Arch goes. Said family will eliminate 2/3 if not 3/4 of the league, but we will be one of the teams the family will approve. So there’s that. 

[AKRNA]

3 hours ago, BroncoSojia said:

Filtering out garbage time = filtering out stats that occur when win probability is less than 10%

Edit and here's a chart when the win probability threshold is lowered to less than 4%

 

It'll get pretty tough to improve. By this time of year DC's are starting to get quite a bit of film on the rookies. Happens every year. 

[Broncofan]

6 hours ago, grizmo78 said:

After watching the Jenkins video I think AAA is spot on. There isn't one thing wrong with this team. We are a sum of our parts and all of our parts are mediocre. Our talent is mediocre, our play calling is mediocre, Bo is mediocre. We all knew this season was a development season so that is what we'll all be watching. Can Bo get better and improve some of his flaws (bailing on a clean pocket, footwork, accuracy down the field) or is this who he will always be. While there are some open players that he misses at times, the amount they are open by aren't wide open guys. They're NFL open but thats so tough for us to expect to hit on as often as we need to to have some semblance of consistency. Right now we don't have the talent, the play calling or the QB play (not that i expect that from a rookie) to make up for any mistakes no matter how small. All that said, there are some really good things we see from Bo and thats exciting. His arm talent is better than I expected (while also not fantastic), he doesn't take sacks and seems to understand situational football pretty well. Those are all things we never saw from Drew Lock or other failures we've had at the position the past decade. I can see this going either way. He proves he's able to make noticeable improvements in his flaws (likely biggest jump would need to happen over the offseason with his mechanics but hopefully we see some better pocket navigation throughout this year) OR his current flaws define him. Helpful context to keep in mind is that the only rookie QB we had a shot at beside Bo was Rattler so comparing Bo to Daniels, Maye, Williams, etc. is pretty moot considering we had not shot at any of them. This coming QB draft class looks pretty garbage too so might as well ride this out and see what comes of it by the end of next year and hopefully by then we've gotten some decent talent on this team with most of our cap space at our disposal.   

I wish we didn't spend the 1st on Bo, and I'm not so sure other teams were as enamored on him to take him in the late 1st (but we'll never know).    FTR, I couldn't believe it when Penix went 1.8 either (and I was on the record as being higher on him, especially pre-injuries), that was an insane turn of events.   Still, what's done is done, so not much point in rehashing the draft could-have-beens.   

In that vein - the last point bolded above is pretty important, I agree with it 100 percent.    In a lot of ways, I don't doubt that Payton & Paton were of the same mind.    I would not spend a 1st round pick on anyone for now (there are 1-2 guys who could change my mind, but not from the usual suspects - Beck, Shadeur, Ewers, and it's not like I'm even 50 percent sold on the other guys, just a hard pass on those 3 in R1), even being QB-needy.     While I didn't have a 1st round grade on Nix,  I'm guessing that Payton & Paton really didn't see anyone in 2025's class that intrigued them.   It doesn't mean Nix was a good pick, and it doesn't doom it to be a bad pick, time will eventually tell the tale.  But the 2025 class being so meh at the top, I'm sure played a role.

It's tough to watch right now, but we clearly should give Nix 2024 & 2025 to show he isn't the guy.   That's very possible, and if that ends up being the case, we can hit 2026's draft really hard.  

Frankly, I would be thinking very much about moving back in the 2025 draft if it can get us real 2026 ammunition.    But until 2026, for better or worse, we see what Bo Nix has to offer us.    Get a stopgap vet to be there if it all falls apart, sure.     But the point right now is to get NFL experience, and with an OL that is actually playing better than we'd have expected with the injuries, and Payton calling the shots, this time is still invaluable.    This isn't New England V2, where the QB is literally running for their life on each down.     

If Nix fails after 2+ years of opportunity where it's not a run-for-your-life situation, it wasn't ever going to work.    We can definitely upgrade the weapons, and simplify the scheme early on, but in the end, by this time next year, we'll have a really good idea if this is more than just a 2-year trial, or if  there's real hope to say he's our guy.    

Edited yesterday at 04:38 AM by Broncofan