George Díaz: Is Bortles franchise quarterback or fraud?
Is Blake Bortles a franchise quarterback, or is he a fraud?
The question isn’t meant to be cruel or be kind. It’s a fair assessment of where we’re at in the conversation about the kid from UCF.
He’s good. He’s bad. He’s a winner. He’s a loser.
Pick your narrative, and there’s a 50-50 chance of being right.
Except the kid part. Bortles is no longer a star-struck rookie making the two-hour commute along I-95 from Orlando to Jacksonville. Bortles is a freshly turned 25-year-old, entering his fourth year in the NFL after the Jaguars made him the third overall selection in the 2014 NFL Draft.
Bortles started 13 games in his rookie season and 45 overall. The disconcerting part is when you start to break it down statistically. He has thrown 69 touchdowns and 51 interceptions. His TDs regressed from 35 in 2015 to 23 in 2016. All his significant numbers skewed downward in 2016.
It leaves everybody in an awkward relationship.
The Jaguars decided to exercise their fifth-year option on Bortles recently. Only 48 hours remained before the Jags had to make a call on a guy once presumed to be their franchise quarterback. Now, nobody is sure. But the fine print reveals minimal risk. Bortles’ salary of $6.5 million is only good this year. But the big-money contract — starting at $19.05 million and escalating yearly — doesn't become guaranteed until the first day of the 2018 league year, so the Jags can cut ties with Bortles before next March and owe him nothing.
The Jags are pretty much going on the cheap in 2017, hoping that Bortles straightens out the yips, bad footwork and inexcusable Pick-6 interceptions.
Anybody who tells you what happens next is lying. You can only project and predict. And Bortles’ resume is etched in unpredictability.
“This is a smart business decision for the team for several reasons,” said Tom Coughlin, in his first season as the Jaguars’ executive vice president of football operations. “It makes sense for us going forward, and it’s good for Blake and for the Jaguars.”
This says nothing, and it says a lot.
Coughlin — the new/old sheriff in town — isn’t going to accept inconsistency from Bortles. He cut him some slack by getting him immediate help — see Fournette, Leonard — and not drafting a quarterback, but there’s always next year.
Quarterbacks could go 1-2-3 in the 2018 draft. That would be USC’s Sam Darnold, Wyoming’s Josh Allen and UCLA’s Josh Rosen. And the Jags, still in rebuilding mode or whatever you want to call it, aren’t likely to be bottom-feeders in the draft.
You can get 66-1 odds on Jacksonville winning a Super Bowl, better than only four other teams at the moment.
The Jaguars can afford to be lousy again. Bortles cannot.
Bortles doesn’t have 99 problems, but he has plenty. He’s not fluid. He hangs onto the ball too long. His deliver can be loopy. His footwork became atrocious last season.
Bortles has done all the right things, including working with multiple QB coaches in the off-seasons, but if anything, he’s gotten worse. Much like a golfer with the yips, it’s hard to tell how much of this is mental and how much of this is physical.
He has been training with 3DQB in the offseason. A video was posted on Twitter in March showing what everyone hopes is a new and improved Bortles.
“The first thing we focused on was probably what everybody would guess, just trying to tighten up the release, make that as quick as possible,” he told Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com. “So never letting really the wrist get below the elbow, trying to keep that parallel and not dropping down.”
There’s nowhere to go but up. Pro Football Focus graded him the 28th-best quarterback in 2016. There are only 32 teams.
But the Jaguars are willing to show Bortles the money if he shows them he is a franchise quarterback.
He will be looking for work with another team in 2018 if he is judged a fraud.