Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton came to the defense of Bo Nix after the rookie struggled in his NFL debut, with the coach noting that the team’s rushing attack did little to help the young quarterback.
“[W]e’re going to look at the tape and we’re going to say this and that, but we’ve got to evaluate, us as coaches, we’ve got to evaluate the run plan and why it wasn’t as effective as we would like,” Payton said after a 26-20 loss to the Seattle Seahawks. “It’s going to be hard to [play] quarterback period if that’s the best we can do running the ball.”
Jaeel McLaughlin led the team with 10 carries, but they only went for 27 yards, an ugly 2.7 yards per carry average. Javonte Williams turned eight rushes into 23 yards (2.9 YPC) and Audric Estime had a small sample size of two carries for 14 yards (and one lost fumble). That’s not going to cut it.
“[F]or any quarterback playing, we’ve got to be more effective running the football,” Payton said. “If [you] take away his scrambling yards, I think we’re like somewhere [around] 60 yards rushing to their 140, so not nearly good enough.”
Nix ended up being the team’s leading rushing in yards with 35 on five carries. He also rushed for a touchdown late in the game.
“[T]here’s a couple of runs that we’ve got to see better vison-wise from the running back position,” Payton said Monday. “Audric has one, where I don’t know that his eyes are in the right spot, but he’s got a chance for a much bigger play. Javonte has one, so overall we’ve got to improve in that area.”
If the offense is going to have more success going forward, Nix will need more support from his backfield.
