Bo Nix ‘has to play better’ according to Joel Klatt

Fox Sports NFL analyst Joel Klatt thinks Bo Nix is chasing big plays at the expense of the easy throws, and that’s leaving the Broncos offense stuck at about 4 yards a pass.

A few weeks ago, Joel Klatt defended Bo Nix. He said he’d rather have a quarterback who looks messy for three quarters and plays like a warrior late than one who looks polished and folds in big moments. Five games into the season, Klatt still likes that trait. He also thinks Nix’s play has dropped too far to ignore.

The numbers back that up. Nix ranks 21st in the NFL with 942 passing yards, is tied for 19th with 6 touchdown passes and sits 24th in QBR at 41.5. That isn’t the quarterback who led Denver to back-to-back playoff trips and an AFC Championship game. The Broncos are 3-2, and their offense has been near the bottom of the league for most of the season.

On a recent edition of “Stokley and Evans, with Mark Schlereth” on 104.3 The Fan, Klatt got straight to the point.

“Bo has to play better,” Klatt said.

He then said exactly where he wants to see the improvement.

“He’s gotta play better when they’re dropping back to pass the ball, and in particular, on base down,” Klatt said.

Base downs, meaning first and second down, are where offenses either stay on schedule or fall behind. When those plays go nowhere, the offense faces third-and-long, defenses can pin their ears back, and the slow starts Broncos Country has watched all season keep happening.

Klatt’s explanation adds a new angle to the conversation about Bo Nix. Much of the recent criticism has called him too cautious. Klatt thinks the problem starts with the opposite instinct.

“I don’t think that he takes the easy ones that are there. So what ends up happening is, I think Bo wants too badly to create success, in particular down the field. And therefore, I think he can miss the easy throws, he can miss the number ones, and then he ends up having to check the ball down, scramble, manipulate the pocket,” Klatt said.

That ties together a lot of what has gone wrong. Bo Nix looks for the big play first, skips past the open short or intermediate throw, and by the time he realizes the deep shot isn’t there, the play has broken down. That’s when the checkdowns, scrambles to the right and throwaways show up. It also matches what Mark Schlereth saw against San Francisco, when Nix passed up five or six open first reads in the first half. Bo Nix isn’t afraid to throw the ball. He’s skipping the simple throw on the way to looking for something bigger, then trying to make up for it on the next snap.

Klatt said the result shows up in the box score.

“And so it comes out, and it’s like, why can’t they get anything going? And it’s because they’re averaging like 4 yards a pass,” Klatt said.

An offense can’t sustain drives at that rate, and it puts extra pressure on a defense that has carried Denver through the first five weeks.

“It’s certainly not sustainable,” Klatt said.

The fix Klatt describes is a simple one: take what the defense gives early in the down and early in the drive. If Nix completes his first reads on base downs, the Broncos stay ahead of the chains, defenses have to play honestly, and the deep shots he wants should open up on their own. With Seattle up next to close out the six-game gauntlet, Denver needs that version of Bo Nix soon.

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