Denver Broncos Bo Nix had an Elite Negative Play Rate in 2025

Bo Nix improved in marginal ways in his second season, but where he continues to be elite is in sack percentage and negative play rate.

Nix doesn't take many negative plays over the course of a season, and this year he was among the very best.

Protecting the ball is always important, and sacks are drive-killers. So, it's clear that Nix is excelling in giving the offense the best chance possible of succeeding.

Bo Nix had an Elite Negative Play Rate in 2025

Negative plays kill drives. They kill a team's momentum. And they almost always end a team's hopes of scoring.

Broncos quarterback Bo Nix was elite in negative play rate this year.

Let's start with sacks, as the negative play rate equation is sacks+fumbles lost+interceptions ÷ total plays.

Bo Nix doesn't take sacks

If you're a member of Broncos Country, you've likely heard that Nix had the lowest sack rate this season at 3.47%. Cris Collinsworth—everyone's "favorite" color commentator—actually talked about it during the Broncos-Commanders Thursday Night Game in late November. How Nix's dad, who was his coach in high school, stressed to the QB to never take a sack if possible.

In 2024, he was 6th in the NFL in sack rate (4.06%) as a rookie. And that carried over from college; Nix was sacked a mere 5 times each in both 2022 and 2023. Oregon's sacks per game were a minuscule 0.39 and 0.36, respectively, both the best in college football.

Sacks are a quarterback stat. Sure, an effective offensive line helps. But it's on the quarterback to get rid of the ball. Or, to know when to take a sack (looking at you, Jarrett Stidham).

We should take a second to give some love to the Broncos offensive line. They were No. 1 in pass blocking for almost this entire season, and they were No. 1 in 2024, too. Those composite pass blocking rankings consider Pro Football Focus grades as well as ESPN's pass block win rate and Sports Information System's numbers. The PFF grades for linemen are reliant, at least partly, in whether or not they give up pressures and sacks.

So, it seems Nix and his elite O-line are in a symbiotic relationship.

Nix doesn't take sacks, which helps the line look better, but the line also protects well, which makes Nix take less sacks.

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Nix's negative play rate was elite this year

Sacks are a huge part of the equation; roughly a third of the negative play rate stat.

Depending on which numbers you use, Bo Nix was one of only three quarterbacks to have a lower than 6% negative play rate this year.

That, per Zachary Krueger in NBC Sports:

"Shedeur Sanders’ 14.8 percent negative play rate (sacks+interceptions+fumbles lost ÷ total plays) was the highest of any quarterback this season (min. 200 dropbacks). Bo Nix, Matthew Stafford, and Caleb Williams were the only QBs with a negative play rate below 6.0 percent."

That's really phenomenally efficient play by Nix.

Scott Spratt's numbers differ only slightly, with Nix being the only player under 6%. The Denver Broncos quarterback comes in at 5.3%, while Stafford at 6.1% and Williams at 6.2% are right behind him.

All told, Nix's 37 negative plays were 12th best for qualifying players (min. 200 dropbacks), but because Bo led the league in passing attempts, his rate is the lowest.

Looking at the 14 playoff teams, 10-of-14 quarterbacks (or QB pair for SF) had a 9.0% negative play rate or less. It would seem that a lower negative play rate correlates with winning football.

However, interestingly Sam Darnold (10.2%) and Drake Maye (10.6%) are in the bottom-third in the stat category.

Something that may be helping keeping them afloat are their high numbers of explosive plays. Darnold was +7 in explosive plays compared to negative plays, Maye was +19. Nix was +23, Williams was +32, and Stafford was an NFL-best +34.

So, limiting negative plays is key to making the playoffs. Generating explosive plays is crucial, too.

For instance, the final four teams in the NFL playoffs—Denver (5), New England (2), LA Rams (4) and Seattle (1)—were all in the Top-5 in explosive differential. Together, turnover differential and explosive differential are one of the best indicators of winning. Although the Broncos had a -4 turnover diff. when the regular season ended, which was rare.

On offense, limiting those negative plays means giving yourself and the offense more chances to create those explosive plays. They go hand-in-hand when it comes to being productive.

The flip side of that is each of the final four teams had good-to-great defenses limiting explosive plays, too. Hence the high differential in explosives. And Darnold's Seahawks defense was second best in limiting explosives (72) to only Nix's Broncos (70).

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Did Sean Payton draft Bo Nix because of his incredible negative play rate?

Negative play rate is a relatively new stat, but it's possible Sean Payton used it while evaluating Bo Nix in the 2024 NFL Draft lead up.

That, per Zachary Krueger.

He wasn't just one of the best, he was the third-best of 182 college QBs:

Back in Aug. 2025, Seth Wickersham's book American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback Wickersham said the same thing.

"Payton came up with a formula: He looked at the rate of negative plays against Mahomes’s total drop backs: percentage of sacks, fumbles, interceptions, then added them together for the average. (He also liked to see a quarterback’s completion percentage, although it wasn’t factored into the algorithm.) Like golf, a low score was best."

The Broncos head coach continued to use that formula when evaluating quarterbacks in the 2024 NFL Draft. According to Wickersham, Caleb Williams’ number was 17.5, and Drake Maye’s was 10.5. Each higher (worse) than Mahomes’. J.J. McCarthy’s number (7.8) was better than those two, but Bo Nix’s was the best.

Attempts: 878 Sacks: 10 (1.1%) Fumbles: 0 (0%) Interceptions: 10 (1.1%) Completion percentage: 74.8 Average: 2.3

“If a quarterback is sacked quite a bit in college, per drop back, you can improve that some,” Payton says now. “But it generally means the processing is a little delayed.”

It seems like Payton was a little bit ahead of the curve here, considering this stat is just starting to have a moment now.

Krueger went on to explain that a lower NegPL% is better, but there's also a threshold number, 8.0%, that indicates a college quarterback probably won't work out in the NFL.

That's interesting because Fernando Mendoza, who will go No. 1 to the Raiders, had an 8.4% rate.

One name really sticks out on that list, which is Josh Allen. He was an outlier in terms of NegPL%, with an 8.8% in college and has become a superstar in the NFL. It should also be noted that Allen was a terribly inaccurate quarterback in college, with a 56.2% completion percentage.

Conversely, Nix had the highest completion percentage in the nation in 2023, an incredible 77.4%.

While it may not be as strong an indicator for NFL success, a higher completion percentage in college usually proves a quarterback's accuracy. And these guys at Brainy Ballers did a study saying a completion percentage of 60.7% in college correlates to a successful NFL quarterback.

Our analysis found a significant link between college completion percentages and NFL quarterback success. Our study identified a threshold of 60.7% and above for college completion percentages, with higher ones being a reliable predictor of NFL quarterback success.

When considering both completion and negative play percentages, it becomes even clearer that Josh Allen is a complete and total outlier.

As for Nix, given his numbers in those metrics, the future seems bright.

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