DENVER — Sunday was far from a banner day for Broncos rookie quarterback Bo Nix, who threw two interceptions in a 26-20 loss at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks.
His 3.3 yards per attempt and 47.5 passer rating were also nothing more than pedestrian.
But any Broncos fan sounding the alarm on Nix after one week should look no further than the rookie resume of the franchise’s last man to start at quarterback in Week 1 of his first season – John Elway in 1983 – for some perspective on the matter.
How good – or bad – was John Elway in his rookie season?
The Broncos beat Pittsburgh in Elway’s first game on Sept. 4, 1983. But that had little to do with Elway, that year’s top draft pick and a highly-touted rookie out of Stanford.
Elway completed just 1 of 8 passes for 14 yards, was intercepted once and sacked four times before being pulled at halftime. Head coach Dan Reeves said Elway’s benching was due to an elbow injury and not his poor play, according to a Washington Post recap from that day. He also fumbled and was called for intentional grounding in the contest, according to the paper.
Elway’s ineptitude wasn’t confined to his debut, either.
His encore performance in Week 2 of 1983 included an inefficient 9-of-21 passing for 106 yards and no scores. He was sacked three times in a 17-10 win over Baltimore, the team that drafted Elway but traded him to Denver when the quarterback refused to play for the Colts.
It wasn’t until Week 3 that Elway recorded a passing touchdown and not until Week 5 did Denver score more than 14 points.
Elway finished the season with a 4-7 record in 11 games, completing a meager 47.5% of his passes on the year and throwing just 7 touchdowns to 14 interceptions. His 54.9 passer rating was second-worst among quarterbacks with meaningful playing time that season.
Broncos fans likely need no reminder that Elway would become a legend of the franchise. He won two Super Bowls and made 9 Pro Bowls, making the Pro Football Hall of Fame on his first ballot in 2004. He would compile a career 148-82-1 record, throwing for 51,475 yards and 300 touchdowns.
My writing this article is not to say Bo Nix will be the next John Elway. The comparisons are, in my opinion, actually pretty ridiculous given the differences in both the college and pro games in the more than four decades between their Bronco debuts.
Bo Nix may well not be the answer for the Broncos. Many in the national media were critical of the selection of Nix at No. 10 overall back in April, and a failed experiment at the quarterback position would be nothing new to the franchise post-Manning.
- Back in 1988, John Elway appeared exclusively on Denver7 every week. Revisit the footage in the video player below:
Should Broncos fans be worried about Bo Nix?
But Elway’s trajectory is proof that a bad first game isn’t reason to panic about Nix.
Zach Bye, a sports radio host on 104.5 The Fan, said an adjustment period in the NFL is expected, even for a seasoned veteran of the college game like Nix.
“Just stepping up from college to the pros, no matter how many starts you have in college – and Bo has the most in the history of college football – it's just a different game,” he said. “It's a different speed, and even judging preseason games isn't really appropriate, because he went against backups who are playing vanilla defenses. Now you are playing starters and they're scheming it up against you, and it was a big wake up call, I think, for Bo, for the coaching staff and for this fan base.”
In fact, Bye had a pretty sobering forecast for the team's win total this season. A fall-off, even from last year's 8-9 campaign that led to the ouster of Russell Wilson and his albatross contract, is possible if not likely, he said.
"I actually think there's a scenario where the organization can be moving in the right direction this year, but win less games," Bye said.
The slate doesn't get much easier for Nix in the season's early goings, either. Matchups with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New York Jets – three more of the league's top defenses – await in Weeks 2-4.
