Ryan Fitzpatrick stands by his criticism of Bo Nix. But he knows his delivery last week wasn’t great.
Fitzpatrick, after he ripped the Denver Broncos quarterback on Amazon Prime Video’s postgame show on Thursday, walked his comments back a bit on his podcast on Wednesday. The “disrespectful” line, he said, was too far.
“The line about being disrespectful to the quarterback position, it boiled over, and that’s the one phrase I wish I could have taken back, because I think my criticism was fair,” Fitzpatrick said on the show. “I don’t think the effort and the competitiveness that he’s shown in the past, I don’t think he was showing that at the end of the game. That is somewhere I usually don’t go, but that’s what I felt.”
Fitzpatrick, the longtime former quarterback turned analyst with the “NFL on Prime Video” crew, laid into Nix after their 17-14 win over the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday night.
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While they got the win in overtime, Nix was not great. He went 17-of-27 for only 107 passing yards in the win, and the Denver offense ended six straight drives with a punt in the second half.
“It was really frustrating to watch,” Fitzpatrick said on Thursday night. “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.”
Nix has thrown for 1,049 yards with six touchdowns and three interceptions this season. He holds a 38.5 quarterback rating, however, which is better than just three quarterbacks in the league. Nix has thrown for more than 200 yards in just two of his starts so far this season, though he’s now gone three games without an interception.
And, perhaps most importantly, he’s guided the Broncos to a 4-2 start. They’ll take on the Arizona Cardinals next on Sunday.
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Even though Fitzpatrick has corrected himself, he still thinks something is off with Nix. After watching the full slate of games on Sunday, Fitzpatrick said he saw plenty of examples of what he wants out of Nix.
“Something’s going on with him,” Fitzpatrick said. “I don’t know what it is. I sat there and watched Football on Sunday … that level in the fourth quarter from all the guys we were watching. You watched CJ Stroud and Trevor Lawrence in that game [in London], going toe to toe, one after another. Even Aaron Rodgers and Jalon Daniels in the fourth quarter. You had Josh Allen and Kirk Cousins, and you had Jacoby Brissett, and you had Matthew Stafford just going at it.
“That’s the type of competitiveness that the quarterback position deserves.”
