Despite defeating the reigning World Champions for the third time in his three-year career, Bo Nix is under fire once again.
In the Denver Broncos' 17-14 overtime win over the Seattle Seahawks, Nix barely eclipsed the 100-yard passing mark, completing 17-of-27 passes and finishing with a QB rating of 71.1. He didn't push the ball downfield much, and he seemed hesitant again.
However, Nix did not turn the ball over. Amid the ongoing Nix pile-on, it sounds like the Broncos' plan may have been to put some early points on the board and then play it safe against the Seahawks, knowing how good Vance Joseph's defense is.
"Fortunately, we didn’t make any mistakes, and I know that sounds a little conservative, but we felt that was going to be the difference," Sean Payton said post-game.
The Seahawks turned the ball over three times. The Broncos? Zero — despite the Seahawks leading the league in takeaways going into this game.
Apparently, some folks have forgotten just how good that Seahawks defense is. Denver's pair of long drives that culminated in touchdowns were dearly bought, and they proved to be the difference in this game because of how well its defense played against Sam Darnold and the Seahawks.
Last week, Brock Purdy made some off-schedule plays against Seattle in San Francisco's Week 5 win, but Nix wasn't able to follow suit on Thursday night. The Seahawks played a smothering defense with a two-high shell against Denver, and after getting that early two-score lead, Nix wasn't about to push his luck.
"There’s a ton of snaps with that defense where when the quarterback sets, there’s nowhere to go and then there’s those off-schedule plays," Payton said of the Seahawks. "Purdy last week was tremendous with some of those plays, but that was our concern, just timing and rhythm, protection and running it. We’re going to see a lot that we want to clean up.”
A Faster Start Pays Dividends
The Broncos had some early success on the ground, but the Seahawks' halftime adjustments snuffed out everything Payton tried to do in the second half. The Broncos punted on every second-half possession, but they didn't turn it over. That second part, at least, was according to plan.
The Broncos have been slow starters offensively this season, but since Payton took back the play-calling, they've scored 24 points first-half points over two games. That's not exactly an explosion of production, but it's a clear step in the right direction. Without it, the Broncos don't beat Seattle.
“It’s a different type of game. I’ve said this before, I can’t think of a game where I didn’t want to start fast," Payton said. "In other words, keys to victory... You’re always wanting to start ready, and we were able to do that, but [I] thought we were physical when we needed to be in this game and our crowd was unbelievable.”
Payton knew this game was going to be a rock fight, and he game-planned accordingly. But the Broncos got the job done, thanks to, as Payton described it, the "magnificent" performance of his defense — which sacked Darnold five times and took the ball away thrice — and the offense's early-game efficiency.
Don't Miss the Point: 4-2
Would that Denver's offense could have contributed more in the second half. But Payton is more focused on his team's achievement of getting out to a 4-2 start despite the first six-game gauntlet the NFL handed them.
“The record," Payton said when asked what makes him smile. "Meaning I say that the record, because those wins are hard to get. So we just played a real good team, and I feel like we can continue to improve."
Once again, the Broncos have walked the razor's edge in one-score games, but they're 4-0 this season in such contests. Each win so far will go down in the record books as a one-score victory, and as impressive as it is to see Denver's close-game resilience from last year stretch into 2026, Payton knows that blade could cut the other way just as easily.
"Being at 4-2 right at this little three-day stretch and then get ready next week, that’d be the honest [answer]," Payton said. "And again, I’m a little bit of a realist to know that 4-2 could easily be 2-4.”
The Broncos now get the benefit of a "mini-bye," which simply means that, after playing on a short week, they'll get three extra days of rest before turning all their attention to the Arizona Cardinals next week. The Broncos have played the NFL's toughest schedule through the first six weeks — there's no getting around that fact — but now Payton and company get the chance to exhale a bit.
There is plenty to clean up and fix on the offensive side of the ball, including Nix's ongoing slump, the Broncos' run-game inefficiency, and the lack of even a semblance of downfield passing. That'll be the focus during these three extra days — which is the only break in the action Denver will get until its Week 10 bye.
At 4-2, though, Payton is seeing the forest for the trees. The triumph of that feat, relative to the gauntlet of opponents the Broncos have faced thus far, isn't lost on him.
“There’s still obviously a lot of things that we can improve on, we have to," Payton said. "When you look at last season and then you project what teams are going to be like, it’s hard to do. We found a way to get four wins. We understand that certainly we have to become more effective, more efficient offensively and yet…"
And yet the Broncos keep winning. Go ahead and say it, Coach.
"So obviously it’s easier to make these corrections when you get a win, and I think you guys know me enough by now that you’re never... It was a good win, but there’s a lot of work to do," Payton said.
The Takeaway
All the hand-wringing over Nix's slump notwithstanding, the Broncos deserve a ton of credit for getting out to this 4-2 start. They've vanquished four 12-win teams from last year; every opponent the Broncos have beaten was in the playoffs this past January, including the winless Los Angeles Chargers.
Clearly, Nix's conservatism and hesitancy is coming from the coaches, on some level. Obviously, that doesn't explain all of it, but reading between the lines of Payton's comments, he wanted that rock fight with Seattle to shape up the way that it did, and by jumping out to an early 14-3 lead, the game unfolded according to plan and played into the home team's hands.
All this talk about the Broncos benching Nix is delusional. It's not going to happen. Nix is Payton's guy, but the Broncos' veteran coach is also smart enough to know that this model of offensive impotence is not sustainable.
Now that the worst of the schedule is behind him, here's to hoping that Nix will relax a little bit and get back to playing the loose, poised brand of quarterbacking we saw in his first two years in the league. If the Broncos can field even a league-average offense, they'll be unstoppable with this elite defense and sound special teams.
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