After the Denver Broncos beat the Seattle Seahawks 17-14 in overtime on Thursday night, a former NFL quarterback had some less than polite words for Broncos QB Bo Nix.
Okay, so it wasn’t Nix's most stylish game. He recorded 107 yards on 27 pass attempts and was sacked twice. Touchdown passes? Zip. The defense was the highlight of the night after recovering two fumbles with two interceptions on Seattle’s quarterback Sam Darnold.
But remember, the kid is only in his third season.
One person who wasn’t thrilled with Nix’s performance was ex-quarterback and now “NFL on Prime Video” commentator, Ryan Fitzpatrick.
“I’m glad they scored the two touchdowns in the first half, but they were in four-minute mode when the second half started,” Fitzpatrick observed. “It was really frustrating to watch. And part of it, for me, is Bo Nix is not playing competitively. It’s almost disrespectful to the quarterback position how he’s playing football right now.”
Did he stop there? Nope.
“First of all, the guy doesn’t want to throw the ball,” he continued. “That’s fine. He’s throwing to the flats, he’s throwing behind, but he has no trust from his coach. He calls a screen play on third-and-8. Just run up and let the clock keep going. What does he do? He throws it away. Seattle gets the ball, they have a timeout.
“And then in overtime, he’s got two chances to be competitive. The last one being designed run for him to run, make somebody miss, and get a first down for your football team. Now, they’re in the locker room right now. They’re excited. They won. He’s not playing competitive football right now.”
Fitzpatrick went on to say that Nix has “no fire or passion” in his game and that he’s taking being leader of the team for granted.
Former NFL cornerback Aqib Talib took issue with Fitzpatrick’s words and defended Nix on “Gridiron.” He also threw some harsh realities at Fitz himself.
“Look, we talking about a guy. We talking about this guy who played for nine different teams in 17 years,” the former Bronco said. “He did. Ain’t nobody wants his [expletive]. “We talking about a guy who only played for a team for more than two years once. That’s Buffalo, and his record as a starter in Buffalo was 19 and 35. That [expletive].
“We talking about a guy who played 17 years, 147 starts, right, and never sniffed the playoff game. He never touched the playoffs ever. That’s disrespectful to the quarterback position.”
Among the several teams Fitzpatrick played for include the Cincinnati Bengals, Tennessee Titans, Houston Texans, New York Jets, Miami Dolphins and the Washington Commanders. His most noted accomplishment in the NFL was scoring extremely high on the Wonderlic test.
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