SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Bo Nix looked and sounded Saturday night like a guy who was happy to just be back on the football field playing against another team.
The film review of his offense’s performance over three drives early in the Broncos’ eventual 30-9 win over San Francisco might not be particularly pretty, but the second-year quarterback brushed off any thought of concern after the game.
“I thought it was good and I thought our team competed really well,” Nix said of the overall effort. “It was fun to see guys get out there and fly around. As the game went on, we just found ways to score points, and the defense did a great job no matter who was in there.”
Only three of the points came from the three drives Nix and the starting offensive line were on the field for. And they also gave two back on a safety when Nix tried to elude pressure in the end zone and threw the ball away, but failed to get it back to the line of scrimmage.
“I just threw it away and didn’t get the ball to the line of scrimmage,” Nix said. “It’s something we have to look at with the pressure, but when I got out, I just didn’t look at the line of scrimmage to get the ball back to it.”
The top group’s numbers won’t wow anybody: 56 total yards in 18 snaps and a 6-of-11 passing performance for Nix that generated just 31 yards.
“It was just average to below average,” Payton surmised.
Of course, numbers don’t tell the entire story. If Courtland Sutton comes down with a corner route that was on his fingertips, Nix’s stat line looks different. Payton clearly wanted to get the ball in the hands of rookie running back RJ Harvey early and often. So on and so forth.
Regardless, it wasn’t a smooth outing to kick off the first of three preseason games.
“It’s a different evaluation, but I still evaluate pretty tough,” Nix said of grading his own performance in a preseason game. “There’s some things you can’t quite control in a preseason game. A lot you don’t really know going into it. My favorite part of the preseason is just reacting to what you get. A lot of times in a game, you’ve got to react because it’s not something you’ve prepared for.
“So that’s really how you treat the preseason, is you get out there, see things, react how you would on a play, and take the ball where your eyes lead you. It’s not always going to be planned, and you’re not always going to be prepared for the look.”
Payton, though, said he spent part of his postgame address with his team talking about the things that they can control even during exhibition games.
“The teams that do it best, that sense of urgency — there’s some mistakes that are going to happen, but the pre-snap penalties, the illegal man downfield — there’s a handful of these things that have to be cleaned up, like, tomorrow,” he said. “It’s the first road trip for all of us, and I’ve got 14 things written down that I’m pissed off about that have nothing to do with the game. So that’s part of the debrief, too. The willingness of the player, employee, all of us to accept and make those corrections are important.”
For Nix, the end result was less important than getting out on the field and seeing live reps. Things to clean up? Sure. Reason for concern? Not for Nix.
“The season will be really fun because you get to actually go a week long on an opponent and prepare for them before you go into a game,” Nix said. “Today is kind of like a changeup at practice. You get to see different looks, and it’s fun because you don’t really prepare for what you’re going to get. …
“It was good from that standpoint, but obviously when we go back and look at everything, we’ll be able to nitpick it and find some things to get better at.”
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