Bo Nix and the Big Jax Burger

An NFL scouting combine notebook which begins with Bo Nix's micro-passing and ends with a Jackson Powers-Johnson mega-meal.

The scouting combine is our annual baptism into the NFL’s bulls**t. We emerge from it soggy and squealing but reenergized, born again to both the awe and wonder of professional football and the grimy drudgery of the stagecraft behind the magic.

The privilege to speak with any authority about the NFL offseason is earned by nodding through dozens of hypnotically uninformative press conferences, watching young men perform drills that only seasoned coaches can evaluate, scouring workout results down to the hundredth of a decimal and wobbling about in the wee hours hoping that a powerful agent thinks enough of you to share a secret that’s actually a self-serving lie. 

The gift of each year’s icy plunge into the combine’s sacramental waters is the grace to accept that you love both the madness and monotony of an NFL-adjacent life. You realize that you love it when a general manager stonewalls ten questions, then love it more when he responds to the eleventh with a kernel of honesty. You love it when a prospect spouts long strings of scripted cliches, then love it more when he offers a brief glimpse of his genuine personality. You love your colleagues when they litter each press conference with “Didya talk to the [insert all 32 teams here]” questions, then love them more when one of them asks something meaningful that you would never have thought of. 

The throng waiting for Caleb Williams. Can you spot a former Football Outsiders personality?

“Repetition is the mother of all skills,” Oregon quarterback Bo Nix said on Friday, serving up a warmed-over morsel of football folk wisdom. If that’s the case, then a week at the combine births hundreds of sharpened skills. Unfortunately, most of those skills, like the act of running 40 yards in a straight line wearing compression shorts, are inapplicable to anything except participating in the combine. 

Bo Nix and the Angry Air Inches

Oregon quarterback Bo Nix attempted 152 passes at or behind the line of scrimmage in 2023, the highest total in the nation among FBS programs. His 143 completions, 1,042 yards and 10 touchdowns on passes of zero air yards or less – let’s call them “micro-passes” – also led the nation. Roughly one-quarter of Nix’s yardage and touchdown production came on micro-passes.

Nix’s 143 completions ranked 10th all-time among FBS quarterbacks in the Sports Info Solutions database, dating back to 2015. The players above him:

• Will Rogers III, Mississippi State, 2021 (215 completions)

• Gardner Minshew, Washington State, 2018 (202)

• Austin Reed, Western Kentucky, 2022 (195)

• Luke Falk, Washington State, 2016 (178)

• Bailey Zappe, Western Kentucky, 2021 (167)

• Davis Webb, California, 2016 (162)

• Brent Stockstill, Middle Tennessee State, 2021 (161)

• Luke Falk, Washington State, 2017 (168)

• Anthony Gordon, Washington State 2019 (158)

• Bo Nix, Oregon, 2023 (143)

What a fun mix of meh mid-round prospects, including draft-hipster binkies like Gordon, whose “quickest release in the draft” reputation came from quickly flinging the ball horizontally. The list above should make you at least a little suspicious of every Washington State or Western Kentucky quarterback. That includes Austin Reed, who spent Saturday’s combine passing drills missing both routine and difficult throws. 

Lest you think the names above present damning evidence against Nix, let’s proceed a bit further down the all-time micro-passing completion list:

• Deshaun Watson, Clemson, 2016 (140)

• Will Rogers III, Mississippi State, 2022 (137)

• Nicholas Vattiato, Middle Tennessee State, 2023 (135)

• Patrick Mahomes, Texas Tech, 2016 (134)

Mahomes actually gained more yards in 2016 on micro-passes (1107) in 2016 than Nix did last year. Jalen Hurts and the 2022 version Caleb Williams also appear a little further down the micro-passing list, after a few other Middle Tennessee types. Williams scored 11 touchdowns on micro-passes in 2022, tying Zappe in 2021 and Ryan Higgins in 2016 for the database record.

We are here today neither to bury nor praise Nix for throwing 152 screen passes, but to talk about the distortions which make draft analysis so wooly and wonderful. 

Nix completed 77.4% of his passes in 2023. We are long past the era when anyone used completion rate as a measure of “accuracy,” but any statistical metric is going to crash into its own tolerances when confronted with a quarterback completing more than three-fourths of his passes, especially when about 12 of those completions per game occurred at or behind the line of scrimmage. 

An extremely high rate of micro-passing also creates a powerful perceptual distortion, one which is more interesting than anything going on in the boxscore. Few analysts pay much attention to college stats, but nearly everyone worships (righteously and rightfully) at the altar of scouting and film study. When confronted with a quarterback who is constantly flinging micro-passes, even the most experienced analysts risk either:

• Downgrading the quarterback as a system product or fluke, no matter how impressive his deeper throws and other traits may be; or

• Getting subconsciously conditioned by all the screens into thinking that the quarterback has “the quickest delivery in the class” or “plays well within structure” or somesuch, even if his arm is a dishrag and he needs a coach’s help to order breakfast.

I’ve never been able to adjust for such distortions when studying quarterbacks. I stopped worrying about it years ago. It’s best to just point to statistical trends, acknowledge that anyone can be susceptible to optical illusions caused by schemes and other factors, take an educated guess and revel in the uncertainty of it all. 

Some folks who know much more about the quarterback position than I do are just now reaching that same conclusion. 

Kurt Warner Yells at Cloud

Analysis of less-than-zero Air Yard micro-passing dovetails with Kurt Warner’s recent TwiXter exhortation that 2024 quarterback prospects need to get the hell off his lawn.

“I know many of you LOVE college football, but as I start to dive into these college QBs, it’s hard for me to even watch,” Warner begins. “Very few play on schedule, the pass concepts are a mess most of the time, they run the same play over & over, a million bubble screens, can’t find many concepts that translate to next level.” It goes on for a while after that.

Warner sure does bring the “This is a HUGE problem now that I have stumbled upon it” energy in his mini-rant. Kids these days with their college offenses! Why, back in my day we ran the Bill Walsh West Coast Offense in the playground!

Translating college quarterback traits to the NFL is actually easier now than it has ever been, thanks to the NFL’s adoption of designed runs, RPOs, Air Raid principles and other college concepts. Check out Warner’s more-or-less contemporary Donovan McNabb executing I-formation (and wishbone!) options and sprint-out concepts in 1998 at Syracuse:

Good luck translating THAT into Andy Reid’s turn-of-the-millennium version of the West Coast Offense. 

Here’s Drew Brees at Purdue, running an offense full of empty-backfield formations and other spread concepts which were uncommon-to-unheard-of in the NFL 23 years ago:

Since we were just discussing micro-passes, here is soon-to-be first overall draft pick Tim Couch in 1998, throwing a million passes to running back Anthony White.

So yes, talent evaluators have been coping with collegiate schemes and traits which do not translate to the NFL since Warner was an Iowa Barnstormer.

Warner followed up his grouchy-old-fart remarks with an open and collegial dialogue with readers and fellow analysts on TwiXter: he has been posting prospect videos and sharing thoughts (speaking AND listening) on what he’s watching ever since. That’s the best approach to analysis of any sort, and it marks the difference between a thought leader and a know-it-all ex-jock resting on his legendary laurels. 

Warner, like many of us, is on a journey of discovery when studying the NFL. Anyone who claims to have arrived at the destination is claiming to have traveled further than he has. Never trust such a person. 

My biggest takeaway from Warner’s crisis of analytical confidence is that anyone covering the draft should look back at their process from five years ago and think, “I did it wrong back then.” Five years ago, I relied less on statistical splits (they weren’t available in an easy-to-use format), over-emphasized bad throws (Josh Allen) and pushed back on the chatter I heard about some players’ personality issues (Baker Mayfield, Josh Rosen) instead of recognizing that the NFL hivemind’s opinion of a quarterback’s personality often turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

There was lots of loose talk in Indy last week about Michael Penix’s work habits. I’m not going to give Penix a sixth-round grade or call him names based on what I heard in a bar, but what I heard fourth-hand is being heard firsthand, (and investigated),  by every team in the league.

Bo Nix Babble On

Circling back to Nix, his micro-passing may or may not be an issue: he looks solid when pushing the ball down the field. His middling performances at Auburn won’t impact his draft stock, because evaluators knew that the program was on fire and his offensive line was made of popsicle sticks. 

Nix’s greatest NFL attribute may be the skill he displayed on Thursday: a knack for lulling reporters to sleep Jigglypuff-style when speaking. Nix gave one of the most mesmerizingly soporific press conferences I have ever endured by a non general manager or school superintendent. 

Here is Nix’s response to a routine question about what teams are hoping to learn from him. It’s delivered in a clear, clipped baritone, with enough inflection to make it sound like human communication, even as it seeps into your brain and switches off synapses: 

“I think they want to see your ability to not only command the room, but how you lead, how you respond to certain questions that make you uncomfortable. I think, at the end of the day, they just want to use that short amount of time to get to know you. They want to use that time to see what you are capable of, what you’re made of, maybe what makes you tick a little bit. But I’ve enjoyed every one of them. I think every interview is a chance to not only get to know them but, in ways, get to know yourself. So that’s been one of the cool things about the whole thing that maybe I didn’t even realize at the beginning. I learned a whole lot about myself through the meeting process.”

Bo Nix: “Blah blah blah blah blah blah” (for 36 seconds).

Note the brilliant rhetorical deployment of cliches in clumps of three: what you are capable of, what you’re made of, maybe what makes you tick. Cicero used the same technique to bore the Roman senate. Nix has also mastered the not-quite pause at the end of one statement before droning into the next, like a rolling brake-tap at a stop sign. He has nothing to say, but he’s not gonna let you interrupt him. And that was one of Nix’s more informative, concise responses.

To be clear: Nix’s gift for verbally inducing comas is an asset. The response above took 36 seconds to deliver. Quarterbacks speak to the media in 10-minute bursts after games and at midweek. A quarterback who can filibuster both limits the number of questions the media can ask him and conditions us to stop asking them. Also, many NFL decision makers are drawn from the ranks of empty-barrel orators. Game recognizes game, and gives it extra opportunities to succeed.

Nix reminds me of Baker Mayfield on the field and Kirk Cousins at the podium. That may not make him an NFL savior, but it’s likely to make him an NFL starter.

Behind the Lines

You may be curious by now about just how often the other prospects in the 2024 draft class threw at or behind the line of scrimmage. Here are last season’s micro-passing statistics of most of the notable prospects.

• Drake Maye, North Carolina: 70-of-74, 409 yards, 1 touchdown

• J.J. McCarthy, Michigan: 49-of-50, 237 yards, 2 touchdowns

• Bo Nix, Oregon: 143-of-152, 1042 yards, 10 touchdowns

• Michael Penix, Washington: 104-of-115, 792 yards, 3 touchdowns

• Spencer Rattler, South Carolina: 109-of-120, 669 yards, 2 touchdowns

• Austin Reed, Western Kentucky: 131-of-151, 819 yards, 7 touchdowns

• Jordin Travis, Florida State: 78-of-85, 592 yards, 1 touchdown

• Caleb Williams, USC: 98-of-105, 698 yards, 3 touchdowns

Nix threw three times as many micro-passes as McCarthy, resulting in four times as many yards. Michigan ran the ball a lot, and McCarthy is either working to overcome a game manager reputation or benefiting from a “winner” reputation, depending on who you talk to and/or how you are wired. 

I like McCarthy and Nix more than I thought I would. Take away McCarthy’s handoffs/Nix’s glorified handoffs and they appear similar. Both can make adjustments at the line, have lively fastballs on short-to-intermediate routes, take similar risks and (to channel Kurt Warner) are a little too quick to run and improvise, which will get them into trouble in the NFL because neither runs quite that well. 

For what it’s worth, Patrick Mahomes led the NFL with 196 regular-season micro-passes in 16 games in 2023 (he skipped the finale); college quarterbacks generally play 12-to-15 games. Sam Howell, Russell Wilson, Tua Tagovailoa, Jared Goff and Jordan Love all attempted 150-plus micro-passes in 2023. The ability to fling a pass behind the line of scrimmage may be more translatable than you, me or Warner think.

Intermezzo

Luke Braun at the Wide Left Substack wrote about Bo Nix and his short-passing tendencies last week. his article is full of genuine scouting insights. You can check it out below.

Wide Left publisher Arif Hasan and I laughed about the coincidentally-bumping topics on Friday night at a hotel bar, long before any of this Walkthrough except the stat segments were written. Then I went back to my room and cried for the rest of the night. (Not really.) 

Luke Braun's Film Room: Bo Nix Doing The One Thing He Does

Longtime friend Matt Lombardo has joined the Substack revolution with Between the Hashmarks. Matt covered the Eagles and Giants for many years as a beat reporter and a radio personality. More recently, he has focused on insider reporting. Matt is well connected and always a few days ahead of the news cycle, making him indispensable during the chaotic free agent weeks to come. Be sure to check Between the Hashmarks out!

FTN Fantasy, the current House of DVOA, was kind enough to serve as my credentialed outlet for the combine. I wrote a review of the coach/GM press conferences which serves as a companion piece to the NFL Nonsense Index here at the 2DZ.

Speaking of free agency, Too Deep Zone will publish DAILY from Monday, March 11th through Friday, March 15th as we get our wheeling, dealing and tampering on. Many of those updates will be free, but at least one (probably if/when the Seven Quarterback Trade of the Century happens) will be for premium subscribers only. 

Also, the Top 5 QBs series continues this week with the Patriots (premium) on Thursday and probably the Jets (premium) on Sunday so it has a chance to breathe before the start of free agency. Look for lots and lots of me in your Inbox over the next two weeks!

Food, Glorious Food

The quest for a scoop about the Big Jax Burger began at the press availability for Oregon wide receiver Troy Franklin on Thursday. A fellow reporter asked a question about Bo Nix’s leadership: not the most inventive take, but I planned to write on Nix, and it’s not like I was asking anything profound. 

Franklin’s answer was somewhat canned: “He’s vocal. He gathers the team and takes us out off the field. He’s making sure that we know what we’re doing out there.” 

What interested me about Franklin’s response was the fact that college quarterbacks can now take teammates out to dinner, the way NFL quarterbacks often do in the offseason. Before the NIL era, a quarterback might have pockets full of booster-club bucks, but they could not flaunt the money around town quite so publicly, nor could teammates tell reporters about it. 

So where did the Ducks go during their bonding sessions? “In Eugene, we go to this place called Elkhorn,” Franking revealed. “It’s a little restaurant out there. It’s pretty good.”

And what does Franklin order? “I get catfish, collard greens and fries. Jackson has his own burger. I’ve never tried that though.”

Wait … Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson already has a hamburger named after him? 

Powers-Johnson weighs 334 pounds. It’s mostly titanium wrapped in a thick membrane of muktuk. He’s Travis Frederick in Creed Humphrey’s body. I simply HAD to know what type of burger such a mountain of man might ingest/inspire. 

So began a quest to answer the combine’s least pressing question.

Little Pasta Guy. Food can be a window into a prospect’s soul. At the very least, it’s something college lads love to talk about. 

Earlier in the week, I spoke to Auburn cornerback D.J. James, who weighed in at 176 but is hoping to get to 180 pounds by his pro day. His plan? “Putting the right things on my body,” he said.

The right things for James’ fit, youthful body are not the right things for my body, damnit. “I’m a big pasta guy,” he said when pressed for details. 

Not big enough, clearly. I asked for specifics. “I like chicken alfredo. I might add a little shrimp; I’m from the coast, so I love seafood.”

Another reporter asked James what he cooks for himself. “I let mom cook. She’s an amazing cook. And she makes the best spaghetti in the world.”

Oh no! James’ mother cooks for him? James might end up a pre-draft laughingstock like Eli Apple, who was castigated for his immaturity by the legendary A. Nonymous Scout back in 2016 for this very reason. Poor, forgotten Apple ended up [check notes] playing eight NFL seasons and counting and nearly earning a Super Bowl ring as a starter for the 2021 Bengals. Apple will never be mistaken for Richard Sherman and has indeed displayed some flightiness, but home cooking had nothing to do with anything.

At any rate, if James’ mom really makes the best spaghetti in the world, then why does he weigh just 175 pounds?

The Evil Anti-Pasta. Back on the trail of the Big Jax Burger, I spoke to Oregon running back Bucky Irving, who noted that he and Nix liked to watch movies together and that he and his teammates ordered from Chipotle every Thursday. Yeah-sure-whatever, you Winter Soldier wannabe, now tell me about this hamburger.

“It’s called the Big Jax burger,” Irving said. “I don’t know what’s on it. I haven’t had it. I’m not really a hamburger kind of guy.”

Monmouth running back Jaden Shirden is a burger guy. Shirden, the leading rusher in the FCS in 2023 (1,478 yards, with 1,722 in 2022) has been crushing the pre-draft performance, generating some buzz at the Shrine Game and running a 4.45 forty on Saturday. Here’s Shirden running away from the entire student body of William and Mary:

At 187 pounds, Shirden can afford to pack on a little more weight. “I try to eat clean,” he told reporters on Friday. “But I can eat anything. You could call it cheating a meal: I could eat that and still burn it off.”

Early in his press availability, Shirden said that he enjoys Shake Shack. When pressed later by other reporters, Shirden reveals that he cheats a LOT of meals. “My favorite restaurant is Olive Garden. I get chicken alfredo or Create Your Own with penne pasta, five-cheese marinara, grilled chicken and shrimp.”

Jaden Shirden does not have to eat more pasta, just real pasta.

Wait … Shirden goes to college in NEW JERSEY but eats at Olive Garden? I know the area around Monmouth a bit. The nearest Olive Garden is 20 miles away from Monmouth University (confirmed by Google Maps), often with shore traffic making the trip longer. It’s impossible to drive 20 miles in New Jersey without passing ten Italian restaurants with better food than Olive Garden. Sorry, but Shirden is undraftable.

I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday for a Hamburger Question Today. So far, I had learned that Zoomers love shrimp and chicken alfredo. But I still had not uncovered the secrets of the Big Jax burger. And Powers-Johnson himself was not scheduled to speak until I was sitting on an airplane on Saturday morning.

Indianapolis is a great city to have burgers on the brain. I ate Shake Shack for the first time on Thursday, girding my loins for one of those late-late evenings. I also enjoyed an A&W double bacon burger on Thursday and plan to fully digest it by Easter. 

After the Peter King Tweet-Up on Friday (now hosted by The Athletic’s Kalyn Kahler), some media medium-wigs seeking a late supper stumbled into Beholder, just as my Dungeons and Dragons characters often did circa 1984. This Beholder was not a floating eye-monster, but a casual-chic eatery with venison and quail on the menu and beef-tongue pastrami on whatever super-secret menu the VIPs at our table had access to. 

Having drank enough Sun King beer to quail at the thought of venison. I ordered the boursin burger with dijonaise, lettuce, tomato and whatever cornichons are. Delicious, as I remember, which is not clearly. Beholder is expensive, but I have now written about it, so thank you for indulging this tax write-off.

Over the course of last week’s endless combine nights, I confessed my Big Jax burger plight to, well, everyone in the media industry. 

“Do you really need a quote from Powers-Johnson about it?” Bleacher Report’s Brent Sobieski asked one night.

“Professionally? No. Emotionally? Like nothing else in this world.”

I received a text from Sobo on Saturday as Group 4 was boarding for Philly. Here is a transcript of Powers-Johnson’s comments.

“It’s called the Big Jax burger. There’s a lot of stuff in it. It’s a big man's delight. 

“We’ll start with the bun: a really great brioche bun. Under that we have a little bit of barbecue. We have some queso. We have some mac ‘n’ cheese, some pulled pork, some bacon, two patties, and a bun under there.

“If you can finish that, it’s free.”

A little on-line sleuthing reveals that Powers-Johnson had the recipe correct but left off the “Cheese bomb tater keg” that acts like a garnish. I am not sure what a cheese bomb tater keg is, but someone should send a bucket of them to D.J. James. He'd be sliding down to three-tech in no time.

Powers-Johnson also revealed that he took a gospel class and sings somewhere between an alto (he sounds like Celine Dion or Adele, according to his self-evaluation) and a tenor (George Strait, who I don’t think is a tenor, but whatever). Both the Eagles and the “Philly Specials” may be looking for a replacement for Jason Kelce, but Powers-Johnson won’t last that long on draft day.

With my combine trip and my journalistic voyage into the colon of a 330-pound man complete thanks to a little help from my friends, I returned home to write all of this up, learn more about prospects like James and Shirden and eat nothing but fruit and bran cereal for the remainder of March.

A Farewell to Kings

Peter King retired last week. Peter has been an inspiration, role model, advocate, resource, mentor and friend to me. He invited me onto panels I did not belong on, introduced me up the social ladder and at least once recommended me for a job that ended up raising my visibility in the industry. (Spoiler: it was Sports on Earth. My editors, not Peter himself, told me about the recommendation). 

When I wrote Nighthawks at the Combine last week, I knew Peter would not be in Indy this year but was unaware that he was about to retire. He makes a brief cameo in that tipsy travelogue. His role should have been much larger. Much of the boozy gladhanding the NFL world does at the combine is forced merriment: tripping the light fantastic when we would rather be snoozing beside our spouses. With Peter, and with Steve and the folks at Sun King Brewing, I always felt like I was at a warm, welcome happy hour among friends.

One thing I loved about MMQB and FMIA is that Peter’s work was never cynical. It’s okay to be sarcastic and satirical, even a little snarky, but cynicism is corrosive. Peter never pretended to be up-up-up on the NFL’s GOAT-of-the-news-cycle – not even Brett Favre back in the olden times – nor took an unnecessary shot on someone on their way down, and he was never a mere amplifier of the NFL’s party line. 

Favre and other apex NFL personalities allowed Peter into their inner circle over the decades. It’s easy to assume the worst about such access, especially among those of us who must beg for ten minutes on the phone with a third-round pick. But Albert Breer pointed at Saturday’s “Tweet Up” at Sun King Brewery that such access is earned by treating every relationship like it’s a 30-year bond, not a transaction. You earn the trust and respect of important people by making friends, not kissing ass, and you make friends by being kind and genuine. Peter’s kindness is something I want to emulate, and he is a more genuine in person than in print.

I am sure I will see Peter again soon. So will readers: he will feel the need to share his thoughts once the NFL season approaches. Until then, I missed Peter this week and will miss him on Monday mornings. He’s an icon and an entertainer.