Blake Bortles and the importance of perspective

Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles currently leads the league with 15 interceptions thrown, and he has been less impressive than fellow rookies Derek Carr and Teddy Bridgewater, though neither of those two have been helped much by their surroundings. It’s clear that none of these three quarterbacks can be properly evaluated at this point in time, simply because it’s too early and they don’t have all of the pieces around them yet. Denard Robinson, Marqise Lee, Allen Hurns, and Allen Robinson have all shown promise at points during the Jaguars season, but the offensive line is still an issue and even the talent at wide receiver hasn’t gelled into a cohesive cache of weapons for Bortles, who would thrive in an offense that has a deep group of pass-catchers that would stretch defenses horizontally.

By most statistical measures, Bortles has been one of the worst quarterbacks in the league this season, as only Geno Smith has a worse QB Rating among qualifiers. But the issue with using these measures is that they are largely based off of interceptions, and Bortles leads the league with 15 interceptions; only Kirk Cousins had just as high of an interception% (turning INTs into a rate stat) as Bortles.

Perspective is the key word when evaluating Bortles, because everybody knew he was going to be raw, and this is especially true when it comes to his decision-making. At UCF, he played in a simplistic offense that asked him to make quick reads, and he rarely had to read through progressions and could get away with staring down defensive backs. Back in February, I wrote that Bortles “could throw around 20 interceptions as a rookie but could also make up for it with his raw talent alone.”

He hasn’t made up for it with his raw talent, but he has met the interceptions prediction. Look, Bortles was never supposed to start as a rookie in an ideal world, and the Jaguars didn’t intend for that to happen. But he picked up the playbook incredibly quickly in August, and Chad Henne‘s beyond awful performances essentially forced the Jaguars hand. I’m not going to evaluate whether or not the Jaguars made the right decision, because that isn’t the point of this piece. The important thing here is that it’s a reminder of how Bortles was thrown in the fire, because he didn’t have to command a truly pro-style offense in college. His lack of decision-making chops has manifested itself, but there are reasons to be optimistic with Bortles.

First of all, his rookie season has been exactly what most of us expected. I mean, did you honestly think that he would be able to immediately make good decisions and avoid picks? The positives from his collegiate career are also apparent at times, because he does flash ability, and he does an excellent job of knowing when to run and when to stay in the pocket. Bortles never looks discouraged, he’s always tough in the pocket (that was easily his best trait in college, as it stood out even more than his tools and upside), and his completion percentage of 62.4% and yards per attempt average of 6.7 are both higher than Bridgewater’s and Carr’s. Is he better than those guys? I don’t think so, but I also have some admitted bias here, since I did rank those two above Bortles durin the pre-draft process.

But here’s another important thing that Bortles is doing as a rookie; he’s improving. The interceptions have been- by far- his biggest issue this season, so why don’t we take a look at those as an example? Splitting up his season into a “first half” and “second half”, we see that Bortles threw a whopping ten interceptions in his first five games, whereas he’s thrown just five picks in his last five. For the first time all season, Bortles managed to go without an interception in Week 13, as he put in a solid day of work against the New York Giants.

Since we knew Bortles was going to struggle if thrown into the fire as a rookie, the most important thing would always be his development going forward and his ability to progress and learn from mistakes. It’s not exactly fool-proof to look at interceptions when looking at his progression as a passer over the course of the season, but, based on the picks, it seems like Bortles really is improving and is learning to take better care of the ball.

For Bortles and the Jaguars, it’s all about staying the course and making sure he’s in a good position to succeed long-term. Again, once the offensive pieces gel and the Jaguars can make another upgrade or two on the line to help Brandon Linder out, Bortles should have all he needs to run an effective offense. At that point, it will come down to him, and there’s little question that he has the tools; he’s flashed them this year. But, again, the most important thing is how he develops as a decision-maker, and I think we’ve seen positive steps in that regard. If we keep everything in perspective, we start to see that Blake Bortles isn’t a disappointment; he’s merely taking the lumps most of us expected him to take.

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