FIRST TAKE | Bo Nix is the MOST TALENTED QB the Denver Broncos have EVER DRAFTED - Stephen A.

quick takes let's get it the Broncos named B Nicks the starting quarterback yesterday making him the first rookie quarterback to start the season opener since the Broncos since who okay now I don't hear anything Elway Dan expectations for Nick yeah I expect him to play really well under Sean Payton pretty quickly he has a ton of college snaps so a lot of defenses he's seen while they're going to be different and quicker he's got a good foundational starting point Molly he reminds me just watching him early on it's the preseason a lot like Brock pie did in San Francisco the ball comes out quick it goes to the right spot there's a tremendous amount of Rhythm within their offense and I'm actually a little bit more intrigued with Denver and specifically their offense after watching him throughout this preseason interesting Damen Woody co-signing not over here yeah listen Molly he's played a ton of snaps in college yeah and honestly it doesn't surprise me considering the style of offense that Shawn Peyton yeah likes to have this young man like he could change the the calculus for the for the Denver Broncos yeah literally like I've been very very impressed with him this preseason interesting doesn't look really good for Russell Wilson when you say that but interesting uh speaking of which we're going to get to that situation in just a bit some more quarterbacks to discuss your former team Damian uh there's only two teams without a week one starter listed starting with the past Drake May has been making a real push to be the week one starter while jacobe set the current qb1 hasn't played the Denver Broncos have made a decision that's right they have decided that Bo Knicks is going to be their starting quarterback here's the good news if you're B Knicks you now get to start for the Denver Broncos first rookie starter since John outway woohoo here's the bad news you play in a division where you're going to have to see Max Crosby coming around the edge twice yuck Bosa for the Chargers once twice yep and some guy named Chris Jones may be the best defense player in the world coming at you twice more and every division game presents a problem with an offensive line that let's be honest between you and I and nobody else is really really over rating so B Knicks welcome to the NFL and naturally he was pretty happy about getting the nod you know it was really cool it's uh you know not every day to um to get that news but obviously you know as a room we've been working hard um and you know putting a lot of good things on on film putting a lot of good things um you know on the practice field um and so to to get that that news is definitely um a great great um you know great thing and so I'm super excited and uh you know ready to get back to work again and go back to it and start again all right so we have the deal he starting a rookie Emmery hunt Mackenzie Brooks I'm Eric cilus Prime Time pregame emry I'll start with you considering the division considering the offensive line considering the fact that this is not a kid who left early and is you know 19 or 20 years old is this the right decision yes because one they picked him in the first round so obviously they was going to throw him out there anyway in this fake competition so yes it's it is the right decision but when you look at BO Knicks he was ready made to start he what started 60 something games in college so yes he's played a lot of football seen a lot done a lot and what I like about his game is the fact that he is experienced he is athletic he's going to need those those athletic traits in this first seven Slater games where they facing some very tough defenses that can really get after the quarterback he does do a good job of not letting bad plays linger and if we're being completely honest what we saw from bonick at Auburn was completely different than what we saw from B knck at Oregon so he did make the necessary steps to get better he got better now you want to see him try to uh reain in some of his lower body mechanics to where he's not as frazzled back there in the pocket or constantly hopping around and that throws off the placement on some of his passes but you like that he has that experience of where he's been battle tested both in the SEC and also in the Pack 12 all right let me follow up with this you're going to start by bringing them up to Seattle where you got to go all silent counts welcome the NL first start then he's going to play Pittsburgh and here comes TJ Watt and that defense then you're going down to Tampa you got to deal with those guys who two years ago they had the Super Bowl defense and then you got to go see the Jets who might be the best defense in football oh by the way then comes Max Crosby around the edge then Bosa around the Ed like I don't know if I might not want to have started him like five or six games in and thrown him right there right out of the gate when you see Bo Knicks who was the sixth quarterback taken this year I mean 12th overall pick but sixth quarterback taken what's his ceiling what's his floor emry funny enough my comp for him was Sam Howell I feel like both guys are one in the same they're both those uh squatty type muscled up athletic quarterbacks that can really get outside the pocket they throw well on the move they do a good job of being a plus one in the Run game Bo is a little bit faster a little bit more athletic than Howell but they're both the same guys and we saw Howell have success last year in Washington despite their defense finishing 32 in the league so B Knicks can play it's just about how much more can he get better because of his age and how how how will he grow within his offense that you know still have some questions about their run game you brought up their offensive line and we looked at that schedule even the SS defensive line with Cam Jordan and Brian B and Granderson coming off the edge that's a problem too so he won't get a break defensively until they face Carolina but you hope he can navigate through that which is why you like a guy that has been battle tested since his true freshman season against Justin Herbert in that kickoff classic down in in Georgia so he's play SEC he's played in the Pack 12 played some high level games so he can weather this storm for the Broncos I like you say the first break he gets is week eight home against Carolina by the way week nine is at Baltimore week 10 at Kansas City so enjoy that onewe break uh McKenzie Brooks when you popped it through the model does Bo Knicks where does he grade out compared to the other Bronco quarterbacks is sign is it statistically significant on what he can provide and is he that much ahead of the other guys it is it's always interesting when we have a rookie coming in and we don't have any stats on them yet so what we like to do is put the trust in the head coach that's all we can do is think that he is better than the two other guys in this quarterback room so those guys around a 60% completion percentage we put B Knicks at a 64% completion percentage now when you compare him to Russell Wilson Russell Wilson was great he had a great passer rating he was eighth passer rating but he was 23rd in yards per attempt he couldn't move the chains he was throwing five yard passes when they were at third and 15 the idea is that Bo Nicks can fix that he can have more yards per completion he can have more yards in the air than Russell Wilson did so when you combine that with a higher completion percentage than these other guys in the quarterback room then you have more scoring Drive potentials and that's when you have a plus two points per game when you have bow Nicks on this field versus these other two guys and that's where we're taking them I'll talk about it later but we have them getting just over those 5 and a half points let's talk about it now why not um so so I'll follow up with you bonck is now the quarterback how does that change the projections on what we expect the Broncos to be this season so you I think it's it really is we were just around 5 and a half wins and now we're just at six wins and I think I talk about those offensive things that he can provide that Russell Wilson didn't but you talk about this defense and it sounds crazy to say this defense was terrible on the road they allowed 30 points per game on the road now you look at their home numbers you can see that we could have a regression to the mean here and they play a little bit better on the road so that difference between five and six wins to me is figuring out that very fixable weakness that they have they're a lot healthier on defense this year I have a feeling that those numbers can get tremendously better and it can go from horrendously bad to even below average and you still can get from those from those five to the six but then again you talk about Bo Knicks just being being able to move the chains far better than Russell Wilson ever could yeah I mean look part of the reason their defense was so bad in the RO is they gave up 70 when they played Miami yuck that's right smile away B Nick you're the starting quarterback in Denver emry um what do you think of the Broncos this season I mean you sort of forecast for me are they going to be for example better than the Raiders are they the worst team in this division what do you make of their chances I mean you see it they're not expecting much they're expecting to win five games and miss the playoffs what do you expect yeah about that number five games cuz when you think about the entire AFC you're you're going to have a 10 win team maybe even an 11- win team uh that's going to be either the 11 win team will probably be the seven seed and a 10- win team will miss the playoff completely that's how stacked the AFC is and then you start to rank these teams by quarterback play and a rookie in B Knicks in one of the tougher sides of the conference in the NFL it doesn't bow well for their chances five is about a good number I can be sold on six if they get you know good down the stretch but that first seven games are are going to be brutal for him and again we're talking about a guy whose numbers were inflated at Oregon a little bit because they threw a lot of bubble screens pushing the ball deep downfield the Deep ball accuracy wasn't there on film and that's where he's going to have to Thrive as a pro and really enhance his offense he'll live in the short to maybe short two in intermediate area of the field in the passing game but you want to see if he can expand it go from intermediate to deep and that's the area where he didn't do well at at uh Oregon but in the NFL there's going to be some chances he's going to have to take deep down the field does he have the consistency in the arm talent to get it down there so it'll be interesting to see especially with the the Run game kind of a bit of a question mark coming off play action will help him calm his feet down but there's a lot going into this decision you started him you drafted him so you have to start him now and we'll see how it plays out yeah I translate this decision this way the first three games ironically to me are the swing games in the Broncos season they're three games against teams that are projected to be just under 500 if they go 0 and three in those three games their season is sunk if they can get out of there two and one you can make a season so why wait on bonick why why let somebody else play the three most important games of the season because they start at Seattle that's winnable or they could lose Pittsburgh at home winnable they could lose at Tampa winnable they could lose all three of those games are winnable and losable and of course every game in the NFL you know what I'm saying but those games are going to be in that 6040 either way kind of split and most games won't be so those are the three games I got to be two and one if I'm a Denver fan hello [Music] [Music] [Music] now look 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