Bo Nix Has Been Getting Brutalized Since That Absolutely Pathetic Performance Thursday Night. Especially From an Outraged Ryan Fitzpatrick.
Brooke Sutton. Getty Images.I don't mean to turn this into a Patriots blog, I truly don't. But I have to see the world through my own eyes. And watching that horrendous exhibition by both teams on Thursday Night Football, it was hard not to look back at the events of last year's final two games. How utterly dominant the Seahawks were in the Super Bowl. And how it was considered a national tragedy when the Broncos had to face the Pats without Bo Nix.
The Seattle team that last night totaled 13 1st downs, 168 yards from scrimmage and 2.9 yards per play was unrecognizable to anyone who remembers the way they played in February.
But Bo Nix, the one who was so indispensable to the Broncos that the nation was slapping an asterisk on the Lamar Hunt Trophy the Pats won? He was even worse. Much, much worse. You know a quarterback has failed when his performance sends Ryan Fitzpatrick spiraling into an existential crisis:
"I'm glad they scored the two touchdowns in the first half, but they were in four-minute mode when the second half started. It was really frustrating to watch. And part of it, for me, is Bo Nix is not playing competitively. It's almost disrespectful to the quarterback position how he's playing football right now. …
"First of all, the guy doesn't want to throw the ball. That's fine. He's throwing to the flats, he's throwing behind, but he has no trust from his coach. He calls a screen play on third-and-8. Just run up and let the clock keep going. What does he do? He throws it away. Seattle gets the ball, they have a timeout."
And:
Fitzpatrick hardly has a reputation as a verbal bomb-tosser. If he's been hyper-critical of his brothers in the QB Frat, I must've missed it. But that's what an abomination like the one Nix put on will do to a man who's passionate about the position. The stuff about "throwing to the flats" and "throwing behind" shows up in the spray chart:
Crikey. That chart is straight out of the days when the forward pass was still in diapers. Something you'd expect to see from the 1922 Canton Bulldogs, not the quarterback whose team has been near the top of the AFC Power Rankings all year. That supposedly has a stacked wide receiver depth chart and is coached by one of the best offensive minds in NFL history.
And put yourself in Fitzpatrick's Aloha shirt for a moment. You not only played in this league a long time and at a fairly high level, you went to Harvard. So presumably you're smart enough to tell off some guy with a ponytail in a Cambridge bar when he's regurgitating Gordon Wood talking about the pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization on Page 98 or whatever. A man like that is naturally going to be offended by what he saw.
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And he is not alone in
It's not just bad. It's historically bad. The math checks out:
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Among QBs with at least 45 dropbacks this season, Nix is 32nd in passer rating, 37th in Pro Football Focus passing grade, and 37th in average depth of target. And it's insane to think he might actually keep his job on a team that is supposedly championship-driven.
Again, not to make this all about the Patriots, but I'm going to make this all about the Patriots. Never forget that Drake Maye had a three week slump, and there were people saying he's finished. At his worst, he'll never put together a six-game stretch like this. Or be so bad that he offends Ryan Fitzpatrick.