Bo Nix keeps putting himself in a familiar bind: the pocket is still there, but he’s already gone.
That tendency has helped make him one of the NFL’s most dangerous off-schedule passers. It has also fueled plenty of the mistakes that come with those highlight-reel moments.
Broncos fans see it all the time - Nix breaks out, resets his base and hunts for the deep throw. Sometimes it works beautifully.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
The bigger question is why he so often ends up throwing from outside the hashes when there’s still structure in front of him. On a recent edition of “Stokley and Evans, with Mark Schlereth” on 104.3 The Fan, Schlereth said he thinks the answer may start with coaching.
“There’s also a part of me that feels like Bo has been coached so stringently about never taking a sack. ‘You can’t take a sack, you can’t take a sack.’ That he escapes the pocket early,” Schlereth said.
The odd part is that the approach has worked in one very clear way. Nix has been sacked 51 times in 37 career games, which comes out to about 1.38 per game.
The historical NFL average is 1.67. So from a pure sack-avoidance standpoint, he’s beating the norm.
But that comes with a tradeoff. Schlereth’s point was that Nix sometimes gives up a pocket that’s still functional, instead of trusting it and climbing into it.
“Sometimes, he doesn’t climb the pocket. Trust that the guy is gonna come out of his break with an anticipation throw, and you gotta climb up there.
And as you climb up there, you’re gonna put yourself in a little bit of harm’s way, but you’ve got enough time. Instead, he’s trying to jump out the back of the, you know, right side of the pocket,” he said.
That distinction matters. Climbing keeps the protection alive, keeps the eyes downfield and gives timing routes a chance to hit on schedule. Backing out to the right narrows the field and turns a manageable snap into a scramble drill.
Schlereth took it a step further, arguing that the issue can become a philosophical one.
“You’ve almost been coached to the point, where you coach the freedom out of what they do,” he said.
He also tied that idea to the way the Broncos often look once they’re chasing the game.
“And then all of a sudden, they get behind by 16. They get behind in the second half, and there feels like there’s just more freedom to go out and make plays,” Schlereth said.
That’s the pattern Broncos Country has seen enough to recognize. Nix seems looser when the game gets away from him.
The challenge is finding that same freedom before the deficit forces it. If he can do that from the opening drive, the Broncos offense could become a lot more efficient.
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