Solak’s Week 10 lessons: What now for Brian Daboll, plus the splitting of the 2024 quarterback class
November 11, 2025
This includes a great breakdown of Bo’s play so far in his career. Well worth a read
11 comments
You telling me a draft analyst wrote an article about how draft analysts are smart and were right all along?
Ben Solar doing a victory lap after the worst game of Bo’s career? Not today satan.
>Nix walked into the league as a risk-averse quarterback who preferred the throwaway to the contested pass and the tuck-and-run to the extend-and-attack. He has become only more cautious over time, as the Broncos’ coaching staff has clearly stressed to him that they can win games when he avoids mistakes. On early downs this season, Nix is bottom five in pretty much every metric we have, including yards per attempt, yards per dropback, explosive pass rate, completion percentage, dropback success rate, first down/touchdown rate and time to throw.
>His numbers leap on late downs. There, he is seventh in explosive pass rate and 13th in EPA per dropback. His air yards per attempt goes from 23rd (6.8) to fourth (9.9). The shackles on his play are loosened by the demands of a late down, and suddenly, the offense can find more explosive plays.
>Should Nix and the Broncos embrace a more ambitious approach on early downs? Not so fast, my friend. Nix is still 28th in off-target rate and 29th in completion percentage over expectation on those late-down throws, per Next Gen Stats. Just like last season, Nix’s accuracy tails off tremendously when he’s forced to put extra velocity on the football. On throws of 10 or more air yards, his off-target rate is dead last among all quarterbacks over the past two seasons combined. For all his risk aversion, Nix has 17 interceptions on throws 10-plus yards downfield, tied with [Geno Smith](http://www.espn.com/nfl/player/_/id/15864/geno-smith) for the most in the NFL. That’s the issue with significant accuracy drain in the deeper areas of the field — the defense has time to adjust to the bad football.
This is basically what all of us have seen. I definitely still think the accuracy is fixable though. It seems like it’s just more timing or WRs slowing down than Bo straight up being inaccurate. Also many of Bo’s inaccuracy issues are just caused by his happy feet, which I would imagine will slow down over time. He’s still working on adjusting to NFL speed
I thought this was a really fair take and matches what I see on the field. I remember reading about Payton’s over emphasis on limiting negative plays when drafting quarterbacks and how much he loved Nix for that in college. We’re now seeing this evolve at an NFL level but, until Nix can consistently hold defenses honest with a deep ball, he’s going to struggle
Solak is a known Bo hater and cherry picking metrics to prove his point.
I can’t imagine watching Caleb williams and think he’s doing better than Nix. I would say the only QB who looks good right now from that class is Maye
What’s our record again?
I swear, this sub would be happier if we were 5-5 so that people’s unoriginal pre-draft analysis would look more correct.
How did Mr. MVP Josh Allen look? How did Mr. HoF Rodgers look? What if the Great Baker Mayfield didn’t choke that last drive against Mr. Completion % Drake Maye (who had just thrown a pick in the endzone)?
How would Drake look against the defenses we’ve been playing against and without Diggs?
This “yeah, but” horseshit criticisms against Bo are so lazy and contrived. Everyone loves to just repeat what hot takes they hear on ESPN or YouTube podcasts. It’s Tebow all over again.
If we go on to win the Superbowl and Bo throws for 4 TDs and runs for one more, there will still be all the “yeah, buts.”
I’m all for fair and accurate criticism of a second year QB. But please show some intellectual honesty and call out other QBs for the same issues. That game last night was awful and full of bad QB play, but nobody says shit about that.
So are we supposed to be a run first team? That’s what I thought was the game plan. This thread and the media criticize the offense when they go into throw first mode.
Then stuff like this comes out about the early down struggles (which are fair), but it conceptually changes the offensive dynamic. Our running in the first half is almost non-existent, but explodes in the second half as the opposing defenses tire out.
I also prefer not to get into shootouts when our offense is lights out for most games this year. The grind it out method doesn’t bother me like it does with others when they pull up how effective Bo is on the later g ft owns and as the game progresses.
I do stress again, penalties are the problem.
>The draft cycle is a ravenous beast, and it demands narratives to chug along to the finish line. We’re only a few weeks away, and still, for the rest of the month, we’ll pretend that Fields is uniquely bad at reading the field; uniquely averse to secondary reads; uniquely incapable of handling an NFL offense. This is also codswallop. It is a malarkey of the highest order. It is utter claptrap.
-Benjamin Solak, on Justin Fields before the draft, in a (now deleted) post on TheDraftNetwork
11 comments
You telling me a draft analyst wrote an article about how draft analysts are smart and were right all along?
Ben Solar doing a victory lap after the worst game of Bo’s career? Not today satan.
>Nix walked into the league as a risk-averse quarterback who preferred the throwaway to the contested pass and the tuck-and-run to the extend-and-attack. He has become only more cautious over time, as the Broncos’ coaching staff has clearly stressed to him that they can win games when he avoids mistakes. On early downs this season, Nix is bottom five in pretty much every metric we have, including yards per attempt, yards per dropback, explosive pass rate, completion percentage, dropback success rate, first down/touchdown rate and time to throw.
>His numbers leap on late downs. There, he is seventh in explosive pass rate and 13th in EPA per dropback. His air yards per attempt goes from 23rd (6.8) to fourth (9.9). The shackles on his play are loosened by the demands of a late down, and suddenly, the offense can find more explosive plays.
>Should Nix and the Broncos embrace a more ambitious approach on early downs? Not so fast, my friend. Nix is still 28th in off-target rate and 29th in completion percentage over expectation on those late-down throws, per Next Gen Stats. Just like last season, Nix’s accuracy tails off tremendously when he’s forced to put extra velocity on the football. On throws of 10 or more air yards, his off-target rate is dead last among all quarterbacks over the past two seasons combined. For all his risk aversion, Nix has 17 interceptions on throws 10-plus yards downfield, tied with [Geno Smith](http://www.espn.com/nfl/player/_/id/15864/geno-smith) for the most in the NFL. That’s the issue with significant accuracy drain in the deeper areas of the field — the defense has time to adjust to the bad football.
This is basically what all of us have seen. I definitely still think the accuracy is fixable though. It seems like it’s just more timing or WRs slowing down than Bo straight up being inaccurate. Also many of Bo’s inaccuracy issues are just caused by his happy feet, which I would imagine will slow down over time. He’s still working on adjusting to NFL speed
I thought this was a really fair take and matches what I see on the field. I remember reading about Payton’s over emphasis on limiting negative plays when drafting quarterbacks and how much he loved Nix for that in college. We’re now seeing this evolve at an NFL level but, until Nix can consistently hold defenses honest with a deep ball, he’s going to struggle
Solak is a known Bo hater and cherry picking metrics to prove his point.
I can’t imagine watching Caleb williams and think he’s doing better than Nix. I would say the only QB who looks good right now from that class is Maye
What’s our record again?
I swear, this sub would be happier if we were 5-5 so that people’s unoriginal pre-draft analysis would look more correct.
How did Mr. MVP Josh Allen look? How did Mr. HoF Rodgers look? What if the Great Baker Mayfield didn’t choke that last drive against Mr. Completion % Drake Maye (who had just thrown a pick in the endzone)?
How would Drake look against the defenses we’ve been playing against and without Diggs?
This “yeah, but” horseshit criticisms against Bo are so lazy and contrived. Everyone loves to just repeat what hot takes they hear on ESPN or YouTube podcasts. It’s Tebow all over again.
If we go on to win the Superbowl and Bo throws for 4 TDs and runs for one more, there will still be all the “yeah, buts.”
I’m all for fair and accurate criticism of a second year QB. But please show some intellectual honesty and call out other QBs for the same issues. That game last night was awful and full of bad QB play, but nobody says shit about that.
So are we supposed to be a run first team? That’s what I thought was the game plan. This thread and the media criticize the offense when they go into throw first mode.
Then stuff like this comes out about the early down struggles (which are fair), but it conceptually changes the offensive dynamic. Our running in the first half is almost non-existent, but explodes in the second half as the opposing defenses tire out.
I also prefer not to get into shootouts when our offense is lights out for most games this year. The grind it out method doesn’t bother me like it does with others when they pull up how effective Bo is on the later g ft owns and as the game progresses.
I do stress again, penalties are the problem.
>The draft cycle is a ravenous beast, and it demands narratives to chug along to the finish line. We’re only a few weeks away, and still, for the rest of the month, we’ll pretend that Fields is uniquely bad at reading the field; uniquely averse to secondary reads; uniquely incapable of handling an NFL offense. This is also codswallop. It is a malarkey of the highest order. It is utter claptrap.
-Benjamin Solak, on Justin Fields before the draft, in a (now deleted) post on TheDraftNetwork
https://web.archive.org/web/20210410160024/https://thedraftnetwork.com/articles/justin-fields-progressions-first-read-analysis
Edit: Here’s another fun one
https://www.theringer.com/2023/04/21/sports/dont-be-surprised-when-will-levis-becomes-an-nfl-veteran
Solak is dweeb that thinks he knows what he’s talking about
100% not worth the read. What are Solak football credentials? Why is he an expert?