Week 12 GDT: Jacksonville Jaguars (7-3) @ Arizona Cardinals (4-6) - GABBERT GAME

[.Buzz]

1 minute ago, Tugboat said:

That's the catch of the whole thing.  Bortles isn't a conservative but accurate game-manager QB like that.  When Bortles does well...he's just sorta flinging it downfield behind the defense off play action or whatever, with tons of room for his receivers to adjust on it and reel it in.

He's hopeless at quick timing routes.  He has horrendous ball placement on those quick slants and crossing route "easy throws".  He even makes screens and checkdowns look difficult and unchoreographed.  He's always been like that, and he always will be.  Because he's a gamer and sometimes even a playmaker, but he's a fundamentally bad football thrower.  A guy like ARob can help cover that up at times by being amazing at using his body and hands to compensate for balls that could end up anywhere in the general vicinity of where they're supposed to...but we don't even have that crutch right now.

 

That's where it seems to me at least, that the only hope for this offense to look anything other than utterly putrid, is to find a way to run the ball right down their throat early and often.  And to do it successfully enough that Bortles can start running some of those "throw a duck somewhere deep and let the receiver make a play on it 1-on-1 with the whole defense cheating down" throws he specializes in.  If they can't get the run game going successfully on its own, trying to get Bortles to kickstart it by playing a precision dink and dunk game is going to completely crater the offense...because he simply can't execute that stuff with anything resembling the sort of consistency required.

 

Yup, I hear you.

IDK, Blake's setup just isn't good for what we want to do. In fact, it's awful. We need a guy that can make those easy throws and convert on 3rd and 3-5 yards. We don't need someone chucking the ball 40-50 yards downfield all the time with how we want to play. We just have to pound the ball, move the chains, and run the clock down. It has been extra hard the past couple weeks running the ball but I covered that above. 

Either way, it's going to be hard to do much with Bortles at QB with how we want to play. That's why I'm nearly certain there's no way he is our QB next year. It's one thing if Blake was good and had the strenghts (throwing it up deep to guys) and weaknesses he does but he still isn't. I just don't see how you can win with him unless you have WR's like ARob all around the field being able to make acrobatic/highlight catches.

Cole/Dede have flashed considerably I'd say. If they have a QB that can hit them in stride and let them do work I think we'd seriously have something with them. Nothing more than a solid #3/#4 with Cole, but I'd happily take that from a UDFA that will be cheap for the next couple years. Not like the transition from where he played college to the NFL is a quick one either so maybe there's hope for more.

[Tugboat]

3 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

Thing is, we were doing that. But you take out arguably our best run blocking OL at RT and put in a scrub like Josh Wells and do the same at LG (Omameh is pretty darn solid as a run blocker, not so great as a pass blocker). After one solid game from Reed he looked bad this game. Cam also struggled quite a bit with Chandler Jones (although Jones came from the inside too, but still, Cam had a tough go at it). It sucks that our LT is clearly not 100% and it's causing technique issues, our RT is hurt and we are putting out a fringe depth OL, and Chris Reed had a bad game.

Put a fully healthy starting 5 OL out there and we're fine. But unfortunately injuries happen and guys have to step up. Doesn't help that the OL issue is league wide though. It'd be great if we could get quality depth across the board, but that isn't happening. Look at what is happening to Dallas since Tyron Smith got hurt. Adrian freaking Clayborne had 6 sacks on their backup LT....ADRIAN CLAYBORNE.

Yeah, absolutely.  I agree that the OLine being a bit borderline to begin with...and then suffering injuries that have us plugging in fringe depth guys as starters, is pretty catastrophic to that whole notion of running the ball effectively.  It's insanely frustrating to watch.  But it is what it is.  That's what we have.  And fundamentally, whether it's because of OLine quality/depth issues or not...on any given Sunday, if we can't run the ball with purpose, our offense is going to be abysmal.  Because we have a bad QB, who isn't even bad in the sort of way that is conducive to a conservatively "managed" dink and dunk offense.

[DuvalsKing]

8 hours ago, .Buzz said:

The OL has done well in preventing the opposing DL's in getting penetration all year. Against ARI, that didn't happen. Chandler Jones had 5-6 tackles at or behind the line of scrimmage. There was no where for LF to run and Blake being a guy that isn't going to hurt many teams with his arm doesn't help the situation as teams can stack the box and make him beat them (which he doesn't do very often).

No running game definitely did us in, but it'd help a bit if the QB didn't have such massive accuracy issues. Was frustrating as the WR's could have helped him a bit more, but he's not making ANYTHING easy for any of them. Each throw he makes they have to make some type of acrobatic/over the shoulder/reaching away from their momentum type of catch.

The interception still ultimately did this team in. That wasn't the sole reason we lost or anything but the fact that he's making a throw like that in year four is just insane. Especially given the fact that we were right around field goal range and there was no need for it. He literally threw it right to the guy like we've seen him do before.

Buzz I don't agree with you about this int from this stand point. I want you to name the one player offense outside of Blake that made a play this past Sunday? That pick wasn't what ultimately lost this game. Because even with that pick this game could have still been won if Doug didn't piss the bed the last 25 secs of that game. Coaching lost this game from lack of preparation (meaning knowing your offense is struggling 2 weeks prior to this game and still continuing to bang your head on a brick wall with no helmet on) , and game mismanagement. Don't get me wrong I can't stand Blake he gets rode because he was the No.3 overall pick which was a mistake on the front office but he is the guy, like it or not Mariota is not that much better then Blake he makes some of the dumbest mistakes as well but he doesn't get near as much flack as Blake. 

Cousins I was never sold on him he makes some of the dumbest decisions in the most in opportune times as well.. its not going to be an easy fix to find a quality QB for this team.