DENVER — Denver Broncos‘ head coach Sean Payton always has Bo Nix‘s back.

That was on full display for the world to see Thursday morning at 11:15 a.m. after Fox Sports analyst Geoff Schwartz gave his opinion on Nix.

“I do think he just is what he is at this point. He looks like the same quarterback he was in college,” Schwartz said on Fox Sports, which circulated on X. “He’s consistent. He’s not gonna make mistakes. But he’s not gonna push the ball down the field all that often.”

Nix’s head coach clearly disagreed, responding on Thursday morning by taking a simple dig at Schwartz, saying, “Always easy to tell who works at it and who doesn’t.”

Following the Broncos’ 34-6 preseason beatdown of the Minnesota Vikings, Payton expanded on his original Tweet.

“That was crazy wasn’t it? I can’t help myself though. When I see something like that, I’m sorry. It’s just, I have a pause and then it’s like, ‘What are you watching?’ Just watch the tape,” Payton said in his postgame press conference. “Here’s the thing though. I think—and this is for any player—sometimes when you’re on the East Coast, you don’t see, whatever, but when you get to see… I remember the first time I ever saw a [former NFL WR] Percy Harvin or [former NFL RB] Adrian Peterson, it was completely different than… So to see someone live and to actually watch them is…”

“Getting back to your question relative to… They’re just,” Payton said, redirecting himself back to Schwartz’ comments. “You guys grind at it, but now you have so many variations. You’ve got the basement podcast with the beer logo and I just couldn’t help myself with that one. It was silly. Everything was the opposite of what he was saying and the worst part was he played at Oregon. I don’t even know the player, so.”

As the community note on the Tweet states, Nix is the opposite of what Schwartz said. In his first two years in the NFL, no quarterback has thrown more touchdown passes that went 20-plus yards in the air.

As Payton pointed out, Schwartz played his college ball at Nix’s alma mater. Unlike Nix, Schwartz was a 7th-round pick in 2008 and bounced around five different teams in his eight year career. He played in 74 NFL games with 39 starts.

It’s clear: To go after Bo Nix, you have to go through Sean Payton.