NFL Gameday: Divisional [Archived] • Page 70

His worst games are his worst games. Zone blitzing doesn't have anything to do with it. He makes questionable decisions every game and, for the most part, got extremely lucky throughout the year. It's clear they emphasized him not turning the ball over but a 3 and out isn't exactly great improvement haha. I don't care if he improves to be Good Andy Dalton. That QB will always exist. Period. It's been four (five) years. It is time to move on. He's not going to wake up and become good.

 

got lucky as in, our schedule was easy this year, yeah.

got lucky as in, he didn't have a lot of pressure because the rest of the team was very good.

If you're suggesting that the plays "just kind of rolled our way", I don't agree with that haha. We had shitty refs often and it's really not like Cole and Westbrook were open a LOT. They got thrown some nice contested passes here and there.

Jags were 12th in first downs acquired by passing the football.

2017 NFL Team Downs Stats - National Football League - ESPN

Dude Kirk Cousins is Good Andy Dalton hahaha. Alex Smith is Good Andy Dalton. Based on the way you act like 4000 yards and a 2.5 ratio isn't special, you're not gonna be happy unless we really do get a top 10 QB haha.

That's a lot to expect considering how many bad seasons we sat through just to get HERE. I'd love an elite QB but the fact is, if we're seeing improvement I want to try ride it until it's clear we're hitting a wall. the 5th year option extended that wall one more year -- I'd be clamoring for them NOT to re-sign Bortles if we had to make that decision this year.

 

I missed jags and joints the last couple days

 

I'm suggesting that Bortles made a lot of bad throws that could result in turnovers but we got lucky that they didn't. The same could be said about our opponents. Tyrod and Ben had at least four almost INTs.

All this says is "look how good you can be in spite of him" lol. Like, if he's holding us back and we've gotten this far, it makes NO sense not to pursue a better option.

If he makes improvements to actually be as good as Dalton/Cousins then yes, sign him to a sub-20 million dollar deal. If he makes massive strides, no more than $22 million. I'm not saying I want someone that is elite. I'm saying I want someone who doesn't take five years to be average. We got here in spite of average-to-bad QB play. If Bortles is still the same at the end of next year, cut him, get a significantly cheaper guy, and pay the guys who we actually need to pay and keep investing in what we do right.

 

I mean yeah but not nearly like in ‘15 and ‘16, it definitely happens less often. There are games where he’s just erratic but most games it’s like 2 or 3 scary passes a game, not more than an ordinary average QB usually commits in a game.

I do agree with you that the new scheme is better at getting guys open, and that’s also contributing to less mistakes... but thats not a bad thing? If anything that settles your QB down / gets him in a rhythm for when he DOES have to make a challenging to throw back shoulder to Keelan Cole up the seam.

Asking your young QB to make those kinds of throws every down is just dumb. Even Drew Brees and his perfect accuracy still gets schemed a lot of easy ass dump off passes. Just because they made it easier doesn’t discredit the fact he actually goes through reads calmly and patiently sometimes now.

We’ve reached common ground.

I agree that the latter is the ultimate priority. If this ship is better served to leave without Bortles, don’t even dock, throw him overboard hahaha.

But I also want to acknowledge the possibility of the former - He improved markedly in all categories AND in the eye test (which you seem to disagree with) without his top two most trusted WR, and it was only his first year with a new coach.

I hate how Bortles has played a lot of the time... but it’s impossible to blame him 100% when you factor in an early supporting cast so poor that, outside of the Browns, the Jags were an anomaly. This is the team that had a historic number of losses under Gus Bradley, started their roster from scratch & was slow to develop anything that could help the passing game. The defense, OL, and running game were all bad for 3 years until we fired Bradley, drafted Ramsey/Yannick/Fournette, signed some free agents, and finally replaced Luke Joeckel.

The narrative of bad teams stunting a QBs development, and overloading them with detail and pressure to be consistent, has been especially true for him. So what I’m saying is we might not have legitimately even seen Bortles develop yet — we still got college Bortles for awhile, who can’t focus on cleaning up his game, or even think on the football field, because he’s playing against way better teams and having to do EVERYTHING 50 attempts per game.

Now that there’s coaching stability, and a complete team that only needs him to attempt 25-30 passes... I don’t think it’s out of the question we start seeing the trajectory of improvement that is usually supposed to appear in a QBs 2nd and 3rd year. Its also reasonable to look for, maybe even expect another wave of marked improvement with his starting wideouts back and more OL pieces.

I’m glad we have a 5th year option so we don’t have to commit to anything to find out. If none of this happens and he plateaus even with ARob back, BYE BITCH. But, if there’s development to be had.. by the numbers, another similar improvement in stats would put him in the same tier of QB you are suggesting that we pursue this offseason. In which case it would be more risky for us overall to let that walk and try to develop somebody else.

 

I wouldn't describe him as patient. He is calm, which is an improvement. He doesn't have to do them every game but he's shown he's unable to hit ANY pass with consistency.

He had Hurns for a good portion of the year. Hurns is just not good and needs to be cut. Lee could be re-signed on a cheap deal but I don't want him as our WR2.

Again, if he improves well enough then re-sign him for literally no more than his fifth year option haha.