Well, he's on a very popular
radio show in Denver. He's got three Super Bowl rings,
multiple time Pro Bowler, Fox Sports, one of the
bedrock guys here Mark Schlereth is joining us. He just wrapped up his
morning show in Denver. So I got to tell you,
I watched Bo Nix. And I thought to myself,
I talked about this early, that the college
draft in football gives you microwaveable
stars, heat them up, they're ready to go. It doesn't matter if
you're Bryce Harper, you could be Wemby. You could be a hockey star. You put it in the oven,
you cross your fingers, you bake a couple of years and
hopefully they help you out. But my takeaway is as
big a mess as Denver was. Nat Hackett draft capital cap. Hell, it was a mess. And I watched that and I
went, are these the Texans. Are we looking at like
they'll become a model of how to get out of a cap disaster. Now, I could be
overstepping it here, but he looked like
he looked in college. I mean, they've already named
him the starter for next week, have they not. Mark Yeah, they certainly have. Bo Nix played
exceptionally well. And I think a couple of things. NFL teams have to do. I think we have to do
it as people, Colin, you have to be honest
with yourself, right. And you have to know
what your strengths are, but more importantly,
what your weaknesses are. And you have to
understand that you have to build the majority
of your football team through the draft. Because when you go after
everybody in free agency, you're paying 8 plus
for b-minus talent Yeah And so what the
Broncos did was saying, we're going to stop the
bleeding, like we are we're not putting band-aids over
gaping wounds anymore. We're going with Bo Nix. And by the way, the
best fit, in my opinion, of any of the quarterbacks that
were taken in the first round. He was sixth overall. I just thought he was
a perfect fit for Sean. And ultimately, you look
at the way he played and I always talk about
just pocket presence. The kid has unbelievable
pocket presence and you saw everything
come to fruition. You saw him stand in the pocket,
deliver the football on time accurately. You saw him manipulate
inside the pocket, never taking his
eyes down to focus on the rush, always keeping him
downfield delivering strikes. You saw him scramble out of the
pocket when he was under duress, but continued to focus down the
football field and complete. His first completion was to
Courtland Sutton on a third down and 10 for a first down
outside the pocket. You saw him operate on
third down as an offense. You saw everything
you needed to see. And Bo Nix is legitimately
going to be the day one starter for the Denver Broncos at
the quarterback position. Without question. In my mind, this is I
mean, it's just a fact. Zero sacks in that game Yeah
everything that Russell Wilson wasn't last year for Sean Payton
Bo Nix was I know it's only one preseason game but this has been
the way it's been all pre-season through practices with
Bo Nix Yeah Now that there's a distinction now Justin
Fields took a lot of sacks for the Bears but PFF told you
it was like the 15th best O line the Broncos O line with a
left tackle that's elite more than workable at the guard. Like I look at the
O line, I'm like, I don't think it's a disaster
when I watched him play. But let's talk about
that because it's a position better than anybody. Is that because a
quarterback gets sacked, there is a tendency to think
the O line is terrible. That's not necessarily
what it means. Explain that Yeah, well, think. What you have to understand is
that quarterback sacks to me are more of a quarterback
driven statistic than they are an O line driven statistic. The way the game has changed is
that the majority of the throws made within the
context of your offense are quick three step and 5
step in nature where the ball is coming out one to 2 and it's
coming out in under 2.5 seconds. So if your quarterback
doesn't throw the ball on time or pulls the ball
and scrambles around, especially on the
backside of the pocket, now those sacks go
on the quarterback. And if you look at
the Denver Broncos last year, of the 45
sacks they gave up, I bet you close to
quarters of those sacks were credited as
Russell Wilson's fault. And that's unacceptable. Like that is unacceptable. And the worst part of that
for me as an offensive lineman is when the quarterback
comes out and doesn't jump on the hand grenade. You want to talk about
want to talk about a guy that will be hated
in the locker room and that will piss me off
is when he takes five sacks and of the six sacks
that were given up and then he comes out in the
press conference afterwards and says Yeah, we got
to protect better. No, no, no, no, no. We what are you, French waiter? No, you got to play better. We don't have to protect
better with all your. We So one of the big emphasis
with that game yesterday with the Denver
Broncos is zero sacks and that's going to be like when
you give up a sack in the course of a drive have almost
zero chance after that sack to score points. Your scoring ratio drops
down to like 8% to 10% or something crazy like that. I don't know exactly
what the percentage is, but you're almost zero
ability to score points if you give up a
sack and a drive. So having quarterbacks
not taking sacks because they
understand what they're doing in the context
of the offense becomes vitally important. Bo Nix and Peyton get a little
bit of a break with scheduling, so you open with Seattle,
but it's a brand new staff. You also have Vegas. At the end of it,
you're at the Jets. But again, the Jets
are what are the Jets you're at Tampa winnable. Pittsburgh at home with
a quarterback issue. You start looking at the first. Now it gets a little
tougher after that. But what is I
mean, I don't know. I look at that with
a rookie quarterback and Minnesota's early schedule
is landmines everywhere I look at this and I think. Pretty workable. What is realistic is somebody
who knows players there. Sean Payton, privately,
what do you think is workable in the first five or
six weeks Yeah no, I think they could come out of
the first five or six weeks with either a winning
record or of a 3 and 3 type record. So do I. And Yeah, ultimately,
here's the thing that ends up happening with national analysts
is they'll say, hey what, talent is questionable here. They don't have a lot of talent. And I'll say, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, you're mistaken. They don't have a
lot of name value Yeah, they have a lot of talent,
but the talent that they have hasn't created a
name for itself yet. The first game I
ever played in Collin was a game in
Philadelphia about halfway through the season,
my rookie year in 89 when I became a starter. And I'll never forget it. It changed the trajectory of
my career to have somebody believe in you is it can mean
so much to you as a player, but just as a parent, if
you believe in your kid, the best thing you can do for
your kids is to believe in them. And I'm sitting on the bus
scared, scared as all get out, going to open up my career
in the vet in Philadelphia against Reggie White and
Jerome Brown and Clyde Simmons and I mean, this is the number
one defense in football. And our quarterback
is Doug Williams. And he walked on the
bus and he walks by me and then he stops and he turns
around and he backs back up and he taps me on the shoulder. I take out my headphones. And he said, listen, the
only difference between you and them is they had
a chance to go out and make a name for themselves. And he goes in today, you
have a chance to go out and make a name for yourself. And I completely believe
you're going to do that. And I end up getting a
game ball in that game and getting in a fight. And I mean, the whole 9
yards, I'm like this guy by the name of Mike Pitts. I am wearing his ass out. And he swung at me. He threw a punch
at me and I tried to decapitate his ass
because I was like, I'm a tenth rounder from Idaho. You're not punking me right. I guarantee you that
that's not going to happen. And ultimately, I got a chance
to make a name for myself. These guys that
play for the Broncos right now haven't
had that opportunity. But trust me, at the
end of this season, they're going to be
four or five guys who make a name for themselves that
are going to become those guys that you look at and go, Wow,
that team is more talented than I thought Yeah And they
just don't have name value yet Yeah no, I've said this. They've got two workable backs,
potentially three receivers. I like a good left tackle. They have, they lack a rush
end, which they drafted. So to me cross your
fingers on that. One of the best
corners, safeties are good linebackers
move great coach I don't buy this that means
I say Minnesota and Denver. I keep hearing they're going
to finish fourth and I'm like, I don't know. I see a lot of players. We got to run. We got to run Mark Schlereth
good seeing you, Bud. You to call and take
care, buddy Yeah.