Bo Nix dropped back to pass 641 times as a rookie. He threw the ball 567 times, was sacked 24 times and scrambled 50 times. His 50 scrambles were the third most in the NFL behind only Jayden Daniels (73) and Caleb Williams (51). Fellow rookie Drake Maye (45) also scrambled quite a bit considering that he played much less than the other rookie QBs.
Rookie QBs tend to scramble for two reasons, they tend to get blitzed more often than veterans and that can result in them running, they also have less familiarity with their WRs so most of those scrambles end up as runs instead of big play throws like you might see from Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes.
The second reason is that the may not be as able to diagnose the opposing defense and make the right read in time to get the ball out - so they run with it. Additionally they may be less willing to throw the ball away to avoid a sack. Caleb Williams had a huge problem with this aspect.
I was interested in understanding the Nexus between passing protection, blitzes and QB pressure. QB can create their own pressure by being indecisive or by not knowing how to move in the pocket to buy time. So first let’s look at the ESPN OL pass block rankings from team pass block win rate (were the Broncos were ranked #1).
| Team | PRWR | RSWR | PBWR | RBWR |
| Denver Broncos | 46% (2) | 32% (8) | 74% (1) | 75% (1) |
| Baltimore Ravens | 33% (29) | 30% (22) | 70% (3) | 74% (3) |
| Minnesota Vikings | 46% (4) | 33% (4) | 70% (2) | 72% (15) |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 42% (11) | 27% (31) | 68% (5) | 73% (6) |
| Buffalo Bills | 45% (6) | 33% (5) | 68% (4) | 71% (17) |
| Kansas City Chiefs | 37% (19) | 30% (21) | 67% (8) | 73% (7) |
| Green Bay Packers | 35% (26) | 33% (6) | 67% (7) | 71% (23) |
| Philadelphia Eagles | 43% (8) | 33% (3) | 67% (6) | 72% (9) |
| Washington Commanders | 43% (7) | 30% (23) | 66% (9) | 74% (2) |
| Los Angeles Chargers | 37% (22) | 32% (7) | 65% (11) | 72% (13) |
| Cleveland Browns | 46% (5) | 34% (1) | 65% (10) | 72% (14) |
| Detroit Lions | 35% (25) | 30% (19) | 64% (12) | 72% (16) |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | 46% (3) | 30% (17) | 62% (13) | 71% (18) |
| San Francisco 49ers | 41% (15) | 31% (13) | 61% (14) | 71% (24) |
| Arizona Cardinals | 33% (28) | 30% (20) | 60% (16) | 72% (11) |
| Chicago Bears | 37% (24) | 28% (29) | 60% (15) | 73% (8) |
| Los Angeles Rams | 37% (18) | 32% (11) | 59% (20) | 72% (12) |
| Jacksonville Jaguars | 27% (32) | 28% (27) | 59% (19) | 70% (25) |
| Atlanta Falcons | 34% (27) | 29% (26) | 59% (18) | 71% (20) |
| Las Vegas Raiders | 43% (10) | 32% (12) | 59% (17) | 71% (22) |
| Houston Texans | 49% (1) | 34% (2) | 58% (22) | 68% (31) |
| Seattle Seahawks | 40% (16) | 31% (15) | 58% (21) | 69% (28) |
| Dallas Cowboys | 41% (14) | 28% (28) | 57% (24) | 73% (5) |
| New York Jets | 43% (9) | 32% (9) | 57% (23) | 68% (29) |
| Miami Dolphins | 39% (17) | 30% (18) | 56% (28) | 70% (26) |
| Tennessee Titans | 42% (12) | 29% (24) | 56% (27) | 71% (21) |
| New York Giants | 41% (13) | 32% (10) | 56% (26) | 69% (27) |
| Indianapolis Colts | 37% (21) | 31% (14) | 56% (25) | 74% (4) |
| New Orleans Saints | 31% (30) | 28% (30) | 54% (29) | 71% (19) |
| Carolina Panthers | 28% (31) | 25% (32) | 52% (30) | 72% (10) |
| New England Patriots | 37% (23) | 30% (16) | 51% (31) | 67% (32) |
| Cincinnati Bengals | 37% (20) | 29% (25) | 50% (32) | 68% (30) |
With a team PBWR of 74% the Broncos were significantly better than the second best OL - Baltimore which was at 70%. The Bronco OL also finished second in run block win rate with only the Texans having a higher value as a team.
So Bo Nix was protected extremely well, which was a testament to the play of the OL and the coaching of Zach Strief. This resulted in in the third lowest sack rate in the league among starting QBs, and the 4th lowest pressure rate in the league at 15.9% according to PFR. Fantasy Pros disagrees and shows that he was pressured on 17.4% of his dropbacks, mainly because they don’t take into account scrambles like PFR does. The only starting QBs who were pressured less than Bo were Tua Tagovailoa (13.6%), Mac Jones (14.1%), and Trevor Lawrence (15.2%). But how often was he (and how often were they) blitzed?
46 Starting QBs (min 100 passing attempts) were blitzed (five or more pass rushers) anywhere from 12.8% (Tyler Huntley) to 33.5% (Andy Dalton). While Dalton was blitzed often, he was not pressured very much. Looking at Blitz % minus Pressure% is informative. A negative value could mean that the OL was terrible and that opposing DC could get pressure with only three or four pass rushers, or it could mean that the QB created their own pressure as we discussed earlier.
Bo Nix was only Blitzed on 25% of his dropbacks according to FantasyPros.com (they don’t factor scrambles into the denominator). That was right in the middle (23rd most/least blitzed QB). I would guess that he was blitzed often early in the season before he showed that he could beat the blitz and then not so much later in the season, but I don’t know that for certain. Some QBs, e.g Tua, were not blitzed OR pressured. This was partly due to how quickly the Dolphin offense had him get rid of the ball. Tua’s 2.1s pocket time was the lowest in the league. Compare that to Jalen Hurts who was the outlier on the other end at 2.7 seconds. Bo’s 2.5 seconds was one of the largest in the NFL.
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I wasn’t able to find a free stat site showing passing stats when pressured and/or blitzed as neither SIS, PFR, NFL.com, ESPN.com nor FP has them. If you know of one please let me know.
Comparing Bo’s accuracy stats to the other rookies we get the table below.
| Rookie QB | SIS on-target% | SIS Catchable% | FP Poor Throw % | PFR Bad Throw% |
| Jayden Daniels | 74.9% | 87.6% | 14.0% | 14.5% |
| Bo Nix | 74.7% | 85.4% | 14.6% | 15.1% |
| Caleb Williams | 70.7% | 82.0% | 19.6% | 21.1% |
| Drake Maye | 75.4% | 85.0% | 15.7% | 16.4% |
| Michael Penix | 72.2% | 83.5% | 21.9% | 22.3% |
Bo was average in terms of having his throws on-target and catchable, but he was really close to Jayden Daniels in terms of poor throw and bad throw percentage. In terms of accuracy Daniels, Nix and Maye were a step above Williams and Penix. Williams at least had the excuse of being pressured very often. Penix did not, but he also had significantly less playing time to get used to the NFL.
Nix also did what he did with an average WR room in terms of big play ability and ability to break tackles/extend plays. Only getting 5 broken tackles in the passing game from the Bronco RBs in 2024 is disappointing when you see that the a host of teams had triple that or more. Teams with a limited WR room, tended to struggle in the passing game, even if they had a quality starting QB.
According to FP, Nix also had the second most dropped passes in 2024 with 32 (tied with Justin Herbert). Only Aaron Rodgers had more with 39. Compare that with Jalen Hurts whose receivers only dropped 1.7% of his passes (6 total).
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Of course, while the Bronco WR room was average, the Bronco RB room was one of the worst in the league, being near the bottom in broken tackles (16 total) and runs of 20 or more (4).
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