Bo Nix did not argue with the idea that the Denver Broncos’ offense has to be better. After Wednesday’s practice, the quarterback said the fix starts with him. “It goes back to us. I gotta play better. We gotta play better. The offense has to play better,” Nix said. “He’s gonna take the credit, and that’s what great leaders do,” he added about Sean Payton, who has blamed the coaches first. “But I feel like I can overcome some of the stuff that is putting us in a bad spot, and I feel like I can play better.”
Nix went 17 of 27 for 107 yards in the 17-14 overtime win over Seattle on October 15. Denver is 4-2 and visits the 2-4 Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium on Sunday, October 25, at 4:05 p.m. ET (23:05 Cairo).
He said he has gone back over how he gets ready each week. “I’ve looked at my preparation. I’ve looked at my process, and I’ve tried to see anything that can be moved around or be changed so that I can overcome and just figure out ways to put us in a better spot,” he said. Asked whether having played well before gives him confidence it will come back quickly, he said: “Absolutely. I’ve seen what it is like to be very concise, be very crisp, be very good on a competitive Sunday.” He added: “It’s always like in football, you always just gotta get that one that just gets you going. We’ve been fighting some really good teams this far and haven’t got that one.”
On pushing the ball downfield, he said: “I’m not going to ever get out there and try to be reckless with the football. I think it’s just being aggressive. If guys see me be aggressive, I think everybody else will be aggressive too.”
“I don’t want to be peaking until the playoffs”
Asked whether coming back from injury has a mental side, Nix said: “I’d be lying if I said no.” He said he is not scared or physically worried. “I had surgery probably, I think, six months ago. It takes a while for things to fully re-engage,” he said. “I know I’m going to get back exactly what I was, if not better.”
Pressed on whether he is all the way back, he said: “I’ve told y’all several times I’m all the way back. I feel really good.” He described the season as a mountain to climb. “I don’t want to be peaking until the playoffs,” he said. “I feel as good as I felt. Actually, I just spoke to our strength coach. I’m hitting better speeds than I have since being here.”
Nix also thanked Payton for defending him in public. “It starts with my head coach,” he said. “Defending you and doing that in public, that’s where I respect him greatly for it.” He said his teammates texted and talked to him over the weekend. He described Payton’s message before the Seattle game as a boxing match: “He said your opposition is going to keep his hands in front of his face and you’ve just got to keep giving body shots.” Payton had predicted “an ugly win,” Nix said, “and sure enough that came true.”
Payton: “We’re going to have to have the right answers”
Payton said again on Wednesday that Nix’s play will follow the rest of the offense. “I’ve got to be better, just relative to in the course of the game,” he said. “Collectively, I think his play will be a byproduct of all of us doing our jobs better.” Asked what he wants to improve, he named third down and “finding throws where you guys look at receivers that are more open.” He said the deep shots were hard to find against Seattle’s defense but that “this defense is a little different.”
He called Arizona “a pressure defense” and pointed to the Cardinals’ win over the Rams. “They were able to take a really good offense and a good quarterback and maybe put them out of rhythm, and we’re going to have to have the right answers,” he said. He said the Cardinals’ takeaway numbers have been “really good” and that they cause fumbles. He also spoke about Trey McBride: “Clearly he reminds me a lot of Bowers. These unique skill set tight ends that could get matched up on safeties or even corners.”
Payton, who took play-calling back recently, compared it to “riding a bike, but you haven’t done it for a while,” and called the offense “a work in progress.” He said he sees “quite a bit” of the Shanahan and McVay influence in Mike LaFleur’s offense, “a feel to their personnel groupings and their play designs.”
Brissett: “Flush it fast”
In Tempe, Jacoby Brissett said the Cardinals cannot ride last week’s 18-16 win over the Rams, their first after four straight losses. “Well, the last time we won, we went on a four-game losing streak,” he said. “So we better find a way to flush it fast and go to the next one.” He repeated a line from LaFleur: “Humility is a week away.”
Brissett praised Vance Joseph’s Denver defense for “creating so much havoc, whether it is with the front, with the different pressures,” and said the Broncos “play with the edge that he has as a play caller.” Asked why the offense settled for field goals on all five red-zone trips against the Rams, he said: “It’s literally finishing. It’s a play here, a play there, but nothing magical that I can tell you.”
He shared a story about his young left tackle. Brissett said he once told him to ask if he needed the quarterback to step up or change the cadence. “His response was, if I’m talking to you, I’m doing something wrong,” Brissett said. “That held a lot of weight for me, and he gave me a lot of comfort.” Asked about Larry Fitzgerald, who goes into the Cardinals’ Ring of Honor on Sunday, Brissett said that when he met him, “I was like, damn, man, I wish I was your teammate for a day.”
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