Week 15 Colts’ Opposing QB: An analysis of Bo Nix

Thanks to the nflFastR project, Pro Football Focus and NFL NextGen Stats for the timely sources of data.

For those of you new to this, I will publish key QB stats each week judging how well the upcoming opponent QB has performed. Yes, O-Line, receivers, and play-calling impact these numbers but they are primarily QB measures. I will probably modify the charts throughout the season. Commentary will be brief but feel free to let me know in the comments that stats aren’t everything. (click charts for larger view).

After the Bronocs decided to pay Pittsburgh $38M to take Russell Wilson off their hands, they found themselves without a starting QB. Enter first round draft pick Bo Nix. After 13 starts, Nix finds himself on an 8-5 team that is in the hunt for a wildcard spot.

For those that believe wins are a QB stat, then that must mean he is pretty good. For those that believe that only film study reveals how good a QB is, then you will have to go watch his 13 games (and probably all the other NFL games for reference). For everyone else, I can tell you what the numbers say.

HOW WELL?

There is a pretty clear trend that Nix has been improving since day 1. His EPA efficiency has risen from the bottom of the league to being above average in 4 of his last 5 games. He’s getting more and more yards per dropback and that is resulting in more first downs.

He’s still far from great, but his last 7 games have been more good than bad.

HOW FAR?

His passing depth is all over the place. On the whole it is about league average, but he has not been afraid to throw the ball deep. His depth on completions has been trending up.

TO WHO?

Broncos receiving has been the Courtland Sutton show. He has more than twice the number of yards and targets of any other pass catcher. Running Back Javonte Williams has been a regular outlet earning more targets than the Denver #2- #4 wide receivers.

Even though Williams is targeted a lot, they are low value completions.

HOW ACCURATE?

Nix’s accuracy has generally been poor, but recently he had some good games. He’s not hitting on the super-deep throws (26+ yards), but he has been good in the 21-25 yard range.

HOW FAST?

His time to throw was growing and out of hand until the last few games. Some of those games can be explained by passing depth, but in general he is holding the ball too long.

TO WHERE?

He doesn’t really favor either side of the field and he’s not much of a deep ball threat overall.

DASHBOARD & CONCLUSION

(Use the right-left arrows to toggle between stats for the week and the season).

• The Denver run game has been OK and they run a balanced offense (16th arsr, 17th edp), but so far, opponent passing defenses haven’t been very good (28th opd).
• ESPN says the Broncos’ O-line is #1 in Pass Block Win Rate and it shows as Nix has not been pressured much at all even though he holds the ball a long time (28th pr%, 6th ttt).
• Although he is not afraid to throw it deep, his overall depth of target is just about league average with a below average depth of completion (15th adot, 24th ay/c). Basically, he is hitting a lot of check-downs and missing the 25+ yarders.
• His below average accuracy and late throws are leading to poor yac numbers from his receivers (18th yac, 28th yacoe).
• Below average completion rate on short completions with little yac unsurprisingly yields bad yards per attempt (27th ypa).
• On the plus-side for Nix, he is very good at using his legs or throwing the ball away to avoid sacks (10th scr%, 11th ta%, 29th sck%).
• Relative to the little pressure he faces, he abandons too many pass attempts (16th aa%), but because he can run and makes good decisions under pressure, he limits the damage (8th yards per abandoned attempt). His 6.0 net yards per attempt ranks 23rd in the league, which isn’t good but it is better than his YPA rank.
• Because he has poor yardage efficiency, he is unable to move the chains well (26th 1st), although when they do get close enough, he’s competent at getting touchdowns (15th td%).
• He doesn’t turn the ball over much (26th to%), which helps boost his overall efficiency to 19th in EPA per dropback. However, his much lower 25th rank in Passer Success Rate shows that he is not consistent and could be due for a regression unless he gets better play to play.

Nix is a young QB that struggled early, but has shown consistent progression throughout the season. It’s tough to nail down who he is yet, but over the last half of his games, I would put him in the middle of the pack of starters.

Denver’s passing game is pretty 1-dimensional. Nix isn’t finding receivers open a lot and so he frequently resorts to check-downs. If you can keep Sutton contained, then the main threat is Nix making a play with his legs. He is poor under pressure, but with the Denver O-line, he is rarely pressured. It may be enough to make sure Nix can’t find an edge and cover routes long enough to force a check-down.