It’s way too early to jump off the Bo Nix bandwagon after a bad day

Bo Nix had a bad day against the Seattle Seahawks.

No one is denying that.

But it’s way too early to jump off the bandwagon of Denver’s rookie QB. Just a small slice of social media on Sunday afternoon and Monday was hard to stomach. There were fans of the Broncos declaring Nix a bust, saying the season is shot and Denver should get ready to take a QB at No. 1 overall in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Calm down.

What Nix did wasn’t pretty. His stats didn’t look good, at all, and more importantly Nix didn’t really pass the eye test. He threw two interceptions but could’ve had five. Anything that wasn’t a dump off looked shaky down the field. His arm strength, which has always been a question, didn’t look great. Neither did Nix’s decision making.

But we all can’t praise the former Oregon star after a dazzling preseason then pretend like it didn’t happen. Nix moved the football against the Colts and Packers with ease. He scored on every drive but one. He didn’t forget how to play football between August and September.

Yes, it’s a good reminder to not read too much into the preseason, where the defenses are more vanilla and nearly half the guys won’t have NFL jobs in the regular season. But are we supposed to dismiss it entirely? That would be silly as well, otherwise why does the league even bother?

The reality is Nix doesn’t have a ton of playmakers around him. Cutting Tim Patrick looks more and more suspect by the day, something some of us called out at the time. Lil’Jordan Humphrey had a terrible drop, one that killed an early drive and could’ve changed the entire vibe of the game.

The issue is more on GM George Paton, not providing Nix enough offensive weapons to look competent in a daunting environment against a team that is fired up for its first regular season contest. Heck, after the game head coach Sean Payton blamed pretty much everyone but Nix, then doubled down on a Monday morning conference call.

“I think when I watch this tape offensively, we need to be better around him and we will be,” Payton said Monday.

He also added this not so subtle shot at his running backs.

“One of the key things that was important in this game is winning the run-game battle. And we weren’t able to do that. We struggled,” Payton said. “There were too many 2-to-3-yard gains. When you look at Javonte and Jaleel’s numbers, we have to be more effective there. And that’s something we talked about in the team meeting.”

Well, Javonte Williams and Jaleel McLaughlin are certainly on notice. The head coach can’t make it much more clear than that. If they can’t run the football, the rookie QB will fail. Any QB not named Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson might fail. It’s a critical part of a successful NFL offense.

So if the head coach isn’t jumping off the bandwagon, why would any rational fan? It’s one game in the loudest stadium in the NFL. Nix is a rookie, something that can’t be repeated enough.

If you want to make judgements on Nix after one season, that’s a little more fair. But frankly with this roster, he should get at least two years, if not three, while the skill positions can be restocked.

But making grand proclamations after one start is silly. And while a lot of Broncos Country seems to have a healthy dose of perspective, others do not. That’s their right, but if Nix turns into the player he can be, they’re going to feel awful dumb.

Denver fans are desperate to win. And for good reason. But turning on Nix after 60 minutes of NFL football is not an effective to way to ultimately reach the mountaintop once again.

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