Geoff Schwartz delivered a take about Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix that even led to a response from Broncos head coach Sean Payton.
Schwartz has recently filled in on FS1’s First Things First. And on Wednesday’s edition of the show, FS1’s Danny Parkins asked Schwartz, “Do you think it’s likely [Nix] takes a step forward, or a step back?”
The former NFL offensive lineman predicted that Nix will take a step back and explained why: “I do think he just is what he is at this point. He looks like the same quarterback he was in college. He’s consistent. He’s not gonna make mistakes. But he’s not gonna push the ball down the field all that often. We know his aerial yards are short; his sort of advanced stats kind of put him right in the middle of the NFL… Sean Payton needs to get him to throw the ball in between the hashes.”
After the First Things First account posted the video of Schwartz’s thoughts on X, it was soon community noted with the following message: “Bo Nix has thrown the most deep touchdown passes of 20+ air yards since the start of the 2024 season (19 including postseason), per official Next Gen Stats.”
Payton, who was a Fox Sports analyst for one year before taking the Broncos’ job, replied to the video post: “Always easy to tell who works at it and who doesn’t.”
Always easy to tell who works at it and who doesn’t.
— Sean Payton (@SeanPayton) August 27, 2026
Well, Schwartz was recently asked about the Payton response by Jared Stillman of Mad Dog Sports Radio, and he defended his take while admitting he could’ve explained it better.
“Sean Payton implying, Jeff, that you’re a lazy sportscaster,” Stillman said. “The floor is yours. Your reaction?”
“Oh, yeah. Look, obviously I misspoke when it came to what I meant to say about the passing, which is that he does throw the ball deep; it’s just not very accurate or not very good,” Schwartz explained. “I know people will point to, ‘He has the most touchdowns 20-plus air yards!’ But he’s 25th on target in the NFL on passes over 20 yards.”
“The comment that I made was about two things,” Schwartz continued. “One is that he also has 20 percent of passes that he completes at the line of scrimmage or behind, which is No. 1 in the NFL as well. So, there’s a wide gulf between his big-time throws and the throws that are behind the line of scrimmage. And it’s somewhere between those two things that I think he’s got to get better at, which is the same thing he had in college. In college, he could throw the ball as far as possible, but it was the intermediate that was a problem.
“And I just didn’t word that correctly. I probably should have worded that correctly. And I just didn’t do that. But again, completion percentages on throws between nine, 10, and 19 yards is 23rd in the NFL. It’s a weird thing where the stats on big-time throws might be high, but he’s not completing a ton of them, if that makes sense, for how many he’s attempting.”
Sean Payton had some words for @geoffschwartz after Geoff’s take on Bo Nix went viral 👀
Geoff and @JaredStillman react to the Broncos coach calling him out, and Geoff stands by his analysis⤵️ pic.twitter.com/nGNiAhXIu3
— Mad Dog Sports Radio (@MadDogRadio) August 28, 2026
“I didn’t see the Sean Payton tweet for a while,” Schwartz said. “People kept texting me like, ‘Bro, hang in there.’ I was like, ‘Hang in there? What are you talking about?’ And then someone sent me the tweet. I was like, ‘Alright, well, I won’t get a Christmas card from Sean Payton.’ So, oh well, Jared.”
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at Awful Announcing and The Comeback.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@awfulannouncing.com.