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Blake Bortles and the future at Quarterback


pwny

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He is just so inconsistent.

We really did baby him a majority of the year. I just go back to the Jets and Cards games where it took a miracle to complete a pass it seemed like. I don’t think this offense reaches its full potential with Blake.

No team is scared of Blake throwing the ball, hence why teams keyed in on Fournette.

The Rams played goal-line D against us when we were at midfield....

Bring back A-Rob, draft a TE pretty high, trade for Alex Smith.

Smith

Fournette/Yeldon/Grant (cut Ivory)

A-Rob/Hurns/Cole/Westbrook

Rookie TE/Marcedes/Koyak?

 

That offense could do some damage.

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After the PO games he made i think it would be so unfair to sign a big free-agent !!! A draft pick, yes but let Bortles be the starter for 2018, he showed enough for me to deserve one more year. You didn't like him today ? Really ? We lost or didn't win coz of him ? Thank you Blake.

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I really don't know.  I always said, "the playoffs will determine whether or not we can go forward with Bortles".  But now...i still just don't know.  We were in position to win that game and move on to the Superbowl, it was right there.  He's come up big at times too.  But he's just done it all in the least convincing fashion imaginable.  There's just this constant doubt that creeps in, and that doesn't feel like something you should generally feel about a quarterback capable of turning your franchise into a perennial contender.

With the way a team's window can open and close in such a hurry in today's NFL...this team is absolutely ready to win a championship.  Have to make good on that right now.  It would be so upsetting to see next year squandered on the violent ups and downs of the Blake Bortles experience.  And i can't rattle that fear loose.

On the other hand though...this guy just quarterbacked a team to the AFC championship game with a real shot at winning it.  You start over with someone else...who knows what you're even going to get.  Especially a rookie who could be flat out awful.  But even a "proven vet" like an Alex Smith...it's hard to say exactly what you're going to get in this offense, under this coordinator, and with these weapons.  And whether that's going to be good enough, or really even better on the whole.

 

It'd be one thing if Bortles was that steady veteran "Alex Smith type"; limited and underwhelming, but predictable and more consistent.  You'd just draft a guy to bring in behind him and go from there (though it'd preclude the addition of other top-end rookies to bolster the rest of the roster).  But that's not what we have as a situation here.  We're pretty much looking at the opposite, because i still don't think we really even know exactly what we're going to get from Bortles next year...not even week on week.

There's no way you can bring in a quality veteran starter via Trade or Free Agency, as long as Bortles is here financially, and in terms of still being "our guy".  I don't even think there's really any way to draft a guy who would be ready to start on a championship calibre team without all but declaring your lack of faith in Bortles.

 

So it's basically...ride with Bortles, or head into next year with something completely different.  Either it's Bortles team and you're operating without a credible safety net behind him, or Bortles isn't around at all...and you're also going blind into the season with a brand new QB who has never played a snap for your team.  It's just so all or nothing, and i can't see any way around that.  It sucks.  It's not an enviable situation for Coughlin and Co. to sort out.

 

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You guys don't think you'd go after Kirk Cousins (and pay him the highest salary in NFL history), right? I'm just trying to cross off teams here with the hope we actually have a chance at bringing him back. From his perspective, Jacksonville would be perfect; Elite defense, young stud RB, no income tax, great weather etc etc. 

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16 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

Although I like Blake and will be fine if he's back next year, I love hearing this. No reason not to look at the market first.

As a non-Jags fan, I think that this is the right call as well. If you can land someone like Cousins, you make that happen. He's a clear upgrade.

Bortles was largely okay, I felt, and I could see the reasoning behind bringing him back, but the potential for upgrading this position (the most important in football) is also there, though the odds may be small. Yesterday I wasn't uber impressed with Bortles, but I wasn't disappointed with him either, if that makes sense. I actually felt very similar to his performance yesterday that I did to Smith's performance for KC against the Titans - he did enough that he probably didn't deserve to lose, but probably didn't do enough to earn the win either. I think if you end up having to bring Bortles back, its certainly not the worst thing in the world as it has now been proven that you guys can win with him, but I also thought that you guys had a weirdly healthy season on defense (correct me if I'm wrong), which may be hard to replicate next year. That may mean that you need more from your quarterback as well, and whether Bortles can do that consistently I Think is something that can still be debated. 

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It's a tough situation because since he's the QB and has somewhat become the mascot of the team for whatever reason.

At the end of the day, looking at the season as a whole, if 2017 Blake Bortles is what we're getting with Blake, he isn't good enough. 

I love the dude so much as a person too, and sometimes as a player, you just have to be more consistent at this level.

We cannot roll with just him, that much is certain. Whether or not he starts, I guess I'll leave that up the the AFC Championship appearing coaches, who should know a lot more about QB evaluation than myself.

I just don't know if I'll ever be confident with him as our starting QB. The consistency just isn't there and too many times he looks like he doesn't belong even riding the bench. 

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1 hour ago, Forge said:

As a non-Jags fan, I think that this is the right call as well. If you can land someone like Cousins, you make that happen. He's a clear upgrade.

Bortles was largely okay, I felt, and I could see the reasoning behind bringing him back, but the potential for upgrading this position (the most important in football) is also there, though the odds may be small. Yesterday I wasn't uber impressed with Bortles, but I wasn't disappointed with him either, if that makes sense. I actually felt very similar to his performance yesterday that I did to Smith's performance for KC against the Titans - he did enough that he probably didn't deserve to lose, but probably didn't do enough to earn the win either. I think if you end up having to bring Bortles back, its certainly not the worst thing in the world as it has now been proven that you guys can win with him, but I also thought that you guys had a weirdly healthy season on defense (correct me if I'm wrong), which may be hard to replicate next year. That may mean that you need more from your quarterback as well, and whether Bortles can do that consistently I Think is something that can still be debated. 

I firmly think we can keep Bortles and win it all. No doubt that he has a game here and there where things aren't clicking and it's brutal to watch, but when you take everything into account over this past season I think he was fairly solid. What he did last week in PIT, especially when PIT started to come back, as well as what he did against NE before going full-on conservative mode by the coaching staff he was pretty damn solid. We'll never know, but if we get away from the run-run-pass and let him let it rip more there is a decent chance we hold on and beat NE and are playing in the SB.

I''m all for seeing if we could grab Cousins or someone of that magnitude, but I'm not sure there's much else that I look at on the market in FA/via trade that makes me feel surpremely more confident going into next year. Eli is older and has fallen off some, I'd be fine seeing him behind center but I'm not sure how much that alters things. Alex Smith may be better, but I watched my fair share of KC games this year as my roommate is a big Chiefs fan and it was ugly at times as well. We'd also have to nab a TE and hit a homerun on that pick because Smith relies heavily on TE's. No one else is even close to a better option than Bortles, and those that I listed above minus Cousins is a marginal upgrade if at all imo.

I'm totally behind the idea of Lamar/Rudolph or some other rookie QB via the draft to sit behind Blake. But someone to actually replace him? Not sure I see someone that screams upgrade besides, again, Kirk Cousins. But I'm not sure we'll want to shed out $25M+ per year long term for the guy. I guess we'll see.

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Bortles first half: 13/16, 155 yards, TD, 127.8

Brady first half: 12/17, 124 yards, 91.2

Bortles second half: 10/20, 138 yards, 72.5

Brady second half: 14/21, 166 yards, 2 TD, 122.3

Bortles isn't the disaster he used to be and has become a competent quarterback thanks to improved coaching, but the Jags won't win anything under him because he simply isn't good enough. The big problem, however, is that there isn't a cost effective upgrade. Cousins isn't going to be worth the money he's going to get and he'll cause salary cap issues.

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38 minutes ago, everlong said:

Bortles first half against us: 13/16, 155 yards, TD, 127.8

Bortles second half against us: 10/20, 138 yards, 72.5

Bortles isn't the disaster he used to be, but Jags won't win anything under him. The big problem, however, is that there isn't a cost effective upgrade. Cousins isn't going to be worth the money he's going to get.

How can you say we can't win anything with him with how the game went yesterday?

If we don't get that delay of game, or if Myles FF/fumble recovery doesn't get blown dead when he wasn't touched, or if we don't give up a 1st down (in off coverage) on 3rd and 18 etc. we may very well win that game. A game in which we went full on conservative on both sides of the ball once the 2nd half started (playing off coverage in the 2nd half, we got no pass rush in the 2nd half although it's been reported Yannick Ngakoue had a torn muscle and Calais Campbell got hurt and missed a large amount of snaps).

No idea how after going up to Pittsburgh and scoring 45 points and what he showed in Foxborough prior to going into the run-run-pass for a large chunk of the 2nd half before realizing that we had to do something otherwise we were going to lose someone can say "Jaguars won't win anything under him" with what just occurred this postseason.

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