Anatomy Of A Play: How Bo Nix Scalded the Browns' Defense For A 93-Yard Touchdown

Obviously, nobody knew where Oregon quarterback Bo Nix would land in the NFL before the 2024 draft. But when I got to watch tape with Nix in March, alongside my good buddy Greg Cosell of NFL Films and ESPN's NFL Matchup, it was clear that Nix had every mental attribute required to deal with any professional passing game. This was not just a guy with a big arm and athletic traits. Nix, the son of a coach who wants to be a coach himself someday, easily went chapter and verse with outstanding recall regarding anything we threw at him. 

In the end, Nix (who probably blew Broncos head coach Sean Payton away on the whiteboard at the scouting combine) went to Payton's Denver Broncos with the 12th overall pick. Which made all the sense in the world. Payton was desperately looking to move on from a quarterback in Russell Wilson where you pretty much have to run the Russell Wilson offense, and Nix — while not yet a performer on the Drew Brees level by any stretch — did seem to have the mental acuity to take Payton's full playbook (which is one of the NFL's most advanced and nuanced) to the field. 

There were rough spots at first, as there will be with most rookie quarterbacks. In four September games, Nix completed 83 completions in 138 attempts for 660 yards, one touchdown, four interceptions, and a passer rating of 62.5.

From Week 5 onward, though, things have turned around to a highly positive degree. Since then, Nix has completed 194 of 296 passes for 2,182 yards, 16 touchdowns, four interceptions, and a passer rating of 99.8 — eighth-best in the league among quarterbacks taking at least 50% of their teams' offensive snaps. 

On Monday night against the Cleveland Browns, Nix was going to be tested by a Cleveland Browns defense that uses single-high coverage as its primary construct under Jim Schwartz, but will also throw all kinds of weirdness as opposing quarterbacks. In particular, Schwartz is a fan of invert coverage, when cornerbacks and safeties switch responsibilities post-snap. In invert, cornerbacks who are often close to the formation, as opposed to playing off coverage, will rush to the deep half to take safety roles, and safeties will run down to take cornerback routes and targets. 

Invert coverage can be mangled in the wrong hands, but as Schwartz loves it, the Broncos knew they'd probably see a bit of it. 

With 10:12 left in the third quarter, and the Broncos up 20-17, Denver had third-and-11 at their own seven-yard line. One reason Schwartz may have called invert coverage here was to bring a better tackler into the box to stop a potential run play in that area of the field, while still giving multiple deep defenders to seal off the top of the passing game.

Also, this was more of a hybrid invert, as safety Ronnie Hickman Jr. stayed in the deep half. The defensive left side was where it got tricky, as cornerback Denzel Ward became a deep-half defender, while safety Rodney McLeod came down to the curl/flat area. 

The interesting wrinkle here was that the Browns had linebacker Jordan Hicks head into the deep half. That's Tampa-2, and a lot of moving parts for Nix to diagnose. 

The Broncos countered with a 2x2 set with three receivers — Courtland Sutton to the back side, Marvin Mims Jr. in the right slot, and Troy Franklin outside right — running vertical routes. When you go that hard on the deep passing game on third-and-11 from your own seven-yard line, that's showing a lot of faith in your young quarterback. 

Nix rewarded that faith by hitting Mims for a 93-yard touchdown. It was an errant snap that Nix had to correct for, he dropped back into the end zone with pressure starting to converge, and he read everything Schwartz threw at him as if it was third-grade English. Then, the outstanding timing and velocity of the tight-window throw.

“We knew it was third-and-long," Nix said of the play. "We were trying to be aggressive and go for the first down. We had three verticals getting to three spots down the field. [They played] 2-Tampa invert. Their corners were going back. As soon as I saw the Mike [middle linebacker] kind of carry, they only do that in Tampa-2, so I knew it was a two-on-one to the field. Marvin with his speed, [I] just had to get it out there. He did a great job splitting the field. Their guy couldn’t get to it. Just kind of heard the crowd go crazy, and it was one of those awesome plays that you don’t get often, but they’re pretty fun.”

The two-on-one was Ward and Hicks converging to Mims on the seam route from the slot, and Nix had to fit it right in there before Ward closed on Mims. Had he thrown the ball a millisecond later, a deflection may have been the best possible outcome. Per Next Gen Stats, Mims had 0.4 yards of separation when the pass arrived, and the pass had a completion probability of 29.5%. Nix's outside receivers each had one-on-ones, but he chose the toughest throw with the biggest reward. 

On Tuesday, Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski was asked if his defense should have been more variable to throw Nix off. 

“Obviously that’s something that you always look at from all sides of the ball, make sure that you’re mixing up your calls at all times," Stefanski said. "So, we’ll learn from that. There are things that we can better on that play. But you do have to also recognize they made a good play. It was a good throw, so good play by them.”

And that's where I think this lands. It was a good defensive call that would have frazzled a lot of veteran NFL quarterbacks. It's just that Bo Nix had the thing on lock from the read to the throw, and there are times when you just have to tip your hat and move along. 

The Broncos' 42-31 win put them at 8-5 on the season, contending for their first winning record since 2016, and their first postseason appearance since 2015. 

Good stuff in the Mile High City, but even more important than where Denver finishes in a record sense is that they not only have their franchise quarterback, but the ideal franchise quarterback for their head coach.