It’s the offseason (but nearly the season!) which means it’s the season for QB contract extensions, and teams declaring that they have “their guy,” even if that means talking themselves into it (we see you Giants and Jags). In thinking about the Jags overpay of Trevor Lawrence in my last piece…I was compelled to dig into the career of Blake Bortles – Jacksonville’s previous “franchise” QB draft choice (3rd overall, 2014).
Now, the prevailing narrative around Bortles is that he was just bad…and this is pretty much accepted as fact by everyone. But here’s what’s weird, to me, about Bortles: he was big (6’5” 236), had a huge arm, a fun rushing floor (Lawrence-esque or actually a little better), and was surrounded by some of the most horrendous rosters in recent NFL history (more on that later). He actually put some really good games (like his 5 TD outing vs. the Titans in 2015), and one pretty good season (2017, Division Title, AFC Championship Game), on tape. Granted, that team was fueled by its defense, but Bortles wasn’t bad. They extended him, and then he kind of came apart in 2018, and by 2019 he was done.
But in an NFL world that has given a quarterback like Sam Darnold several “lives,” and has done the same for guys like Marcus Mariota (several teams), Carson Wentz (several teams), and even Zach Wilson (a fresh-start trade in Denver)…I’m wondering why Bortles never got a real second opportunity? He never even got the Chad Henne/Blaine Gabbert “go be a backup in the league for a decade after underwhelming as a starter” long tail. This, to me, is strange, for someone so toolsy.
So what went wrong?
The Black (and Teal) Hole That Was Jacksonville’s Roster Situation
Jacksonville’s GM for much of the Bortles era was David Caldwell – largely considered to be one of the worst general managers in NFL history. The team’s most notable rushing threat for much of the Bortles era was a college quarterback (Denard Robinson, Michigan), and his only good, consistent receiving weapon was Allen Robinson (very good) along with a rotating cast of guys like Allen Hurns, Cecil Shorts, and Marquise Lee (meh, meh, and meh). The running back room included guys like Jordan Todman and T.J. Yeldon and Toby Gerhart. Eventually the team added RB Leonard Fournette but then made him work behind a still-bad offensive line (see below) that never really nudged toward “average” during the Bortles era.
The offensive line was a disaster. Caldwell whiffed on first round offensive tackle Luke Joeckel, and he was arguably the best player on some of Bortles’ early Jags lines, which included journeymen like Austin Pasztor and a 6th round rookie, Luke Bowanko, starting a lot of games in Bortles’ rookie campaign. As a result, he took an ungodly number of sacks (a David-Carr-like 55 and 51 in his first two seasons) – some of which were his fault, but many of which weren’t. And he didn’t really get a chance to work on that long, loopy throwing motion, due to running for his life most of the time. He had Marcedes Lewis (who they were deeply committed to not using) and Julius Thomas (who they kind of used) at tight end.
With the exception of Lewis (he could block) and Allen Robinson, probably nobody I mentioned above would have started anywhere else in the league.
Defensively, Caldwell had really started to figure it out toward the end of the Bortles run, hitting on young players like EDGE Yannick Ngakue, early-career Myles Jack (for whom the wheels fell off later), and, of course, star cornerback Jalen Ramsey. Add to that stalwart ILB Paul Posluszny and some nice role players like Tyson Alualu and Jonathan Cyprien, and the defense was capable of keeping the team in games.
But in general, Bortles’ supports casts in this era were a David-Carr-Expansion-Texans or Steve-Young-In-Tampa-Bay level of bad. Like, Joe Montana would have struggled to win six games with most of these rosters.
The Coaching Problem
Bortles’ two head coaches were Gus Bradley (career record 14-48) and Doug Marrone (career record 38-60). Neither received another head coaching opportunity after their respective tenures in Jacksonville, and Marrone’s 10-6 season was the lone bright spot. Now, it would be easy to point to the quarterback…or roster construction…if you’re an unsuccessful coach (and vice versa), but the lack of a robust market for Bradley or Marrone points to some of what Bortles had to work with.
The Weird/Grim AFC South in That Era
Watching some Bortles games from this era really drove home the fact that this was a grim run for the AFC South, in general. It was a post-Manning Colts era that, in retrospect, was just a little tragic, what with the herculean talent of Andrew Luck surrounded by guys like late-career Frank Gore, late-career Andre Johnson, and a patchwork offensive line. These Colts just weren’t very good. Ditto for the Titans, whose roster was a lot like the Jags, except that they hit on their left tackle (Taylor Lewan) and had a real weapon at TE in Delanie Walker. Otherwise, the cupboard was bare in a pre-Derrick-Henry iteration. You haven’t really lived unless you’ve enjoyed the legendary Bortles/Charlie Whitehurst showdown from Week 6 in 2014. The Texans were…Texany.
Safe to say there were no elite coaches in the conference in this era, either. In addition to the aforementioned Jags coaches, the lineup included Chuck Pagano (Colts), Ken Whisenhunt (Titans), Mike Mularkey (Titans), and (as it turned out) the filet of the conference…Bill O’Brien (Texans). Underwhelming, to say the least. The AFC South in this era was a hard watch. Somebody was gonna win 9 games by default, and it was usually the Texans or Titans, but it sure wasn’t pretty. Come to think of it, none of these coaches, after their AFC South runs, ever received another head coaching opportunity.
Bortles and Lawrence (with a Side of Gabbert)
On paper, tools-wise, Bortles and Lawrence are pretty similar. Both are big-framed athletes who ran/created in college, and had the arm talent to make shot plays downfield. Lawrence has had better supporting casts, and the chance to throw to real NFL receivers like Christian Kirk and Calvin Ridley and Evan Engram. Lawrence’s lines have been almost-average (as opposed to abysmal), with Cam Robinson at LT and steady pros like Brandon Scherff and Jawaan Taylor around to provide some stability. Travis Etienne is a more interesting RB option than whatever was being presented in the Bortles era.
Statistically, they’ve got some similarities as well. Lawrence has been a little more accurate (63% to 59%), and has probably been more cautious overall (and perhaps a little more cautious than he needs to be). Bortles’ TD percentage and rushing YPC were actually both a little higher, despite his lack of a supporting cast, but a few unconscionable things stand out: namely Bortles’ pick-sixes (an astonishing 13!) and his sack number (195, for 1,158 yards lost…or a nice RB season, going backwards).
Their rookie years were basically the same, from a statistical and a won/loss standpoint. Both improved markedly in year two. Year-three-Lawrence was supposed to make the leap to elite but was just…fine. Here’s what’s weird about Bortles: despite all the aforementioned issues…he put together a few really nice performances – like 4 and 5 TD games – with no supporting cast. The likes of which (performances) Lawrence hasn’t really had yet.
Let’s do a quick Gabbert comparison: he was picked 10th overall in 2011 and was quantifiably much worse than either Bortles or Lawrence. His completion percentage in the Jags years was 52.6. His Jags-era TD/INT ratio was 22/25. And he didn’t run the ball. Those seasons were unmitigated disasters, and yet Gabbert is still on NFL rosters serving as a backup, in which roles he has collected a couple of Super Bowl rings.
None of this makes any sense. Lawrence is perceived as ready for a big extension, Gabbert is perceived as a worthwhile backup, while Bortles was out of the league by 30 – perceived by all to be an unmitigated disaster.
So What Am I Trying To Say?
Either the Jags can’t draft a quarterback (possible) or they just can’t seem to ever put a decent roster around one (also possible), although they’re coming the closest with Lawrence. I think what I’m trying to say is that Bortles was probably about as good as Lawrence, but with a worse supporting cast, and not nearly as bad as Gabbert (with a very similar supporting cast). I think he got scapegoated for problems that were, to some degree, beyond his control.
What I’m also saying is that I like Quarterback Reclamation as an affordable alternative to Flyer on the Rookie or Overpaying the Second Contract. I would have liked to have seen Bortles get this kind of opportunity.