Broncos QB Bo Nix had a quicker read, and that set up the Pat Bryant TD

Mark Schlereth sees a Broncos QB who now abandons a covered target in an instant, and says that simple habit separates good QBs from the rest

BY DENVER SPORTS

Nov 12, 2026, 11:58 AM

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Watch: The Bo Nix TD throw that carved up the Panthers | Broncos POTG with Mark Schlereth | 9 mins

Quarterbacks get credit for the throw. Mark Schlereth thinks the real progress is in what happens before it: how fast a quarterback realizes his first read is dead and moves on.

On a recent episode of “Denver Broncos Play of the Game,” Schlereth used the touchdown pass from Bo Nix to Pat Bryant against the Panthers to argue that Nix is getting there. The improvement, he said, has been steady and incremental.

The growth started in the pocket

Schlereth pointed first to Nix’s pocket presence. Nix took off on a 62-yard touchdown run after climbing the pocket in Arizona, and on a play or two before that he climbed the pocket and took a sack. Schlereth was glad to see even the sack, because climbing the pocket is exactly what he wants from Nix.

What Nix saw on the seam

On the Bryant touchdown, the defense showed a combination coverage. A corner and a safety jammed Courtland Sutton in a double team, while the nickel ran to the flat and a backer sat in the hook. Nobody ran the seam with Bryant, and the safety could not get over the top.

Nix looked at Sutton, saw the double team and left. He got to the other half of the field, saw Bryant uncovered and fired.

The contrast with earlier in the season is the point. Schlereth described a quarterback who used to stare at his top target and then bail.

“You’re looking at your No. 1 target, what are you doing? You’re throwing your check down,” Schlereth said.

Now, he said, Nix finds the second target. The play is one that any quarterback should make, Schlereth said, but “it’s a play that we weren’t making early in the season.”

Speed is the skill

Schlereth was careful to say he has never played quarterback. He builds his view from years of talking with coordinators and quarterbacks and from studying the position. His framework has two keys. The first is whether the middle of the field is open or closed, which tells you which coverages are possible. The second is a movement key, a defender whose behavior tells you where to throw.

Here the movement key was the safety over Sutton. A safety there meant something unusual was happening, so Nix was off the read immediately.

Hesitation would have ruined it. Schlereth said a quarterback who paused to count it out would have let the safety recover. Instead Nix went “boom, gone.”

Simple, and still not automatic

Schlereth’s larger claim is that good quarterbacks make the game simple.

“It’s really ultimately a game of keep away,” Schlereth said.

If a defender plays low, throw high. If he plays in, throw out. The quarterbacks who see that quickly, he said, are the ones who play exceptionally well.

He added that the lesson can sound basic. “It may sound like it’s elementary stuff,” Schlereth said, “but it’s stuff he wasn’t doing earlier in the season.”

If Nix is doing it now, he wondered how much ceiling is left.

Schlereth did not promise a leap. He called Sunday’s performance against the Carolina Panthers a much better job of orchestrating the offense, then added that Nix still needs to get better.

“We’ll take the progress,” he said.

Disclosure: This article was transcribed from our original audio content and edited for readability with the assistance of generative AI. The article has been reviewed by our editorial team prior to publication. Please watch or listen to the clip above for the full segment.