With the Denver Broncos atop the AFC West standings, coach Sean Payton is increasingly being asked about how Bo Nix continues to engineer dramatic wins rather than fielding questions about why his third-year quarterback struggles to throw the ball downfield.
Nix has led the Broncos to a 6-2 record, including wins against AFC rivals Jacksonville and Kansas City, along with defending Super Bowl champion Seattle. He has done it despite averaging a career-low 6.0 yards per attempt.
Denver beat Seattle in overtime in Week 6 and trailed Kansas City by 11 points in the fourth quarter last Sunday. The 28-24 victory over the Chiefs marked Nix’s 15th career game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime. That broke Dak Prescott’s NFL record of 14 through a quarterback’s first three seasons, and Nix still has nine regular-season games to go.
“I’ve always felt like I’ve wanted to feel like a clutch player. It’s an important quality as a player when everybody’s looking at you and the pressure’s on,” Nix said Wednesday. “I don’t think you do it individually. If you look at our team in the last three years, we have had 15 game-winning drives.
“I just think we have a lot of guys with a clutch gene. We have a lot of guys that when the game’s on the line, will just find ways to go score.”
Nix’s critics continue to point to his inability to throw the ball down field effectively. His 19 completions of 20-plus yards are tied for 17th in the NFL, and he has only four of 40-plus yards — two of which came on underneath completions to running backs.
On the flip side, Nix has a 92.1 passer rating in the fourth quarter of one-score games and a 98.5 rating overall when Denver is trailing this season. That’s compared with just 75.2 when the Broncos are ahead.
“I don’t have the answer,” Payton said when asked what allows Nix to elevate his level of play when needed. “I know what you’re asking. I look at it internally myself like, ‘All right, let’s get going.’
“I don’t think anything changes. I just think it’s opportunity, and that’s just usually how the game goes. It’s a one-score game at the end, and you have to go out there and win it.”
Denver travels to play Carolina on Sunday ahead of its bye week. Payton said playing against quarterback Bryce Young and the Panthers is not the week the Broncos want to start slowly again offensively. But if they do, Nix has proven early in his career that he should never be counted out.
“I’d much rather be known as the guy that wins games in the close ones than the guy that always looks great early and can win but doesn’t know how to close out the game,” Nix said. “I’d much rather be clutch than the other way around.”