The Broncos might’ve come away with a thrilling win on Thursday, but that didn’t mean their quarterback was beyond reproach.
In fact, Ryan Fitzpatrick let Bo Nix hear it.
Denver, thanks to a defense that picked off Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold, came away with a 17-14 win on “Thursday Night Football.”
On the other side of the ball, though, Denver struggled to get anything going, with 168 yards of total offense.
Nix, coming off a less-than-stellar 123-yard passing game against the Chargers on Sunday, continued to struggle by going 17-for-27 for 107 yards.
It marked the second-fewest passing yards of Nix’s career, only topping a 60-yard effort against the Jets in Week 4 of 2024, but that came in a game with torrential rain in the Meadowlands.
On Thursday, Nix averaged just 4 yards per attempt, his lowest of the season.
The effort, on the whole, upset Fitzpatrick, the veteran quarterback of 17 years.
“Bo Nix is not playing competitively,” Fitzpatrick said on the Prime Video postgame show. “It’s almost disrespectful to the quarterback position how he’s playing football.”
When pressed about what he meant, Fitzpatrick added: “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. He has no trust from his coach [Sean Payton]; he calls a screen play on third-and-8. Just run up and let the clock keep going. What’s he do? He throws it away, Seattle gets the ball, they have a timeout.
“And then, in overtime, he’s got two chances to be competitive, the second one being a designed run for him to run, make someone miss and get a first down for your football team! Now they’re in the locker room right now, they’re excited they won. He’s not playing competitive football right now!”
Host Charissa Thompson, clearly excited by Fitzpatrick’s energy, noted: “You are playing competitive broadcaster, and I love that you are fired up.”
Nix’s 2025 season ended prematurely when he fractured his ankle in the AFC divisional round, forcing him to miss the conference championship against the Patriots the following week.
Before last week’s game in Los Angeles, Payton took over the play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Davis Webb. Even with two Broncos wins since the change, the play under center has been mediocre at best.
“I can only imagine how Sean Payton feels,” Fitzpatrick said. “Sean Payton, Davis Webb, everybody that blocks for him. He’s not competing right now, and that’s something that he’s hung his hat on the last two years. I don’t know if he’s still injured or what’s going on, but it’s not good enough — it’s effort.”
