Bo Nix Played Fast in First NFL Action

As I said in my Caleb Williams analysis a couple of days ago, there is only so much you can learn about a quarterback from watching him during the preseason. That doesn’t mean we aren’t going to take a look and try to break it down, however.

For Broncos rookie QB Bo Nix, the numbers in his debut were good (15-21, 125 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT). However, the performance on tape didn’t quite match up.

Nix played fast, sometimes moving from the pocket too early or failing to see open receivers. There were also a few snaps where his feet broke down in the pocket as he moved through his reads.

Some of this could be attributed to nerves. Perhaps Nix was feeling it in his first NFL action (and that would be completely understandable). But some of this was a continuation of what he showed on his college tape.

At his core, Nix is a better and more comfortable player early in the down. At Oregon, he excelled at quickly deciphering the coverage and getting the ball out of his hands early in the play. And there were plenty of those types of throws in his NFL debut:

Later in the down is where he tended to struggle in college, and that was certainly also the case on Sunday against the Colts, as you can see below.