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Vast similarities between Blake Bortles and Ben Roethlisberger

By Robert Brewer

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Many football observers, myself included, have compared Blake Bortles of the Jacksonville Jaguars to Pittsburgh Steelers’ veteran gunslinger Ben Roethisberger. On the surface, both players are big, strong, mobile signal callers that do a great job of improvising and buying time for receivers to get open. However, a closer look at these two reveals that there are even more similarities than meets the eye.

In Roethlisberger’s case, he had only one year of high school football playing experience which led to the future Super Bowl champ being under-recruited on his way to college. As a result, Roethlisberger settled on the University of Miami in Ohio as his eventual landing spot. As for Bortles, he was not heavily recruited after his high school career either. Labeled as a three star prospect according to Rivals.com, Bortles was recruited by mediocre programs such as Colorado State, Purdue, and Western Kentucky among others. Bortles eventually decided to enroll at the University of Central Florida.

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Both players ended up redshirting in their first season at their respective schools and played three years of collegiate football before turning pro. In addition, both Roethlisberger and Bortles enjoyed outstanding final seasons at their universities which put them on the NFL radar as potential first round draft picks. While Roethlisberger passed for 4,486 yards and accounted for 40 all-purpose touchdowns during his final collegiate season, Bortles threw for 3,581 yards and tallied 31 all-purpose td’s in his last year with the UCF Knights.

Bortles and Roethlisberger also own the unique distinction of finishing their college careers with great performances in their respective team’s bowl games. Bortles led Central Florida to a victory over fifth ranked Baylor in the 2014 Fiesta Bowl with 394 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns. Meanwhile, Roethlisberger also registered four touchdowns and threw for 376 yards in a 49-28 Redhawks’ victory over Louisville in the 2003 GMAC Bowl. These epic performances in their final college games likely catapulted both small school prospects into top half of the first round of their respective draft classes.

As Roethlisberger and Bortles began their pro careers, both were drafted in the first round by teams with losing records. The 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers were coming off of a 6-10 campaign the previous year while the 2014 Jacksonville Jaguars were trying to erase the memory of a 4-12 season the year before. As each player’s rookie season began, it was expected that both Bortles and Roethlisberger would sit on the bench and learn the pro game before getting thrown to the wolves.

In Roethlisberger’s case, that original plan was scrapped by week 3 as he was inserted into the starting lineup to relieve an ineffective Tommy Maddox. For Bortles, his journey as a starting NFL quarterback began in week 4 this past season after several lackluster performances from previous Jags’ starter Chad Henne. Both Bortles and Roethlisberger made strong cases to become their team’s full-time starter after positive outings in spot duty prior to their first career starts.

Unfortunately for Bortles, this is where the similarities stop with Roethlisberger at the moment. While Roethlisberger went on to a 13-0 record as a starting rookie quarterback and led his team to an AFC Championship game appearance, Bortles went just 3-10 in his first year as the Jaguars’ starter.

In Bortles’ defense, he did not have the luxury of being surrounded by Pro Bowl talent like Roethlisberger did in his inaugural NFL season. With veterans such as Hines Ward and Jerome Bettis on offensive, and talented defensive playmakers like Troy Polamalu and Joey Porter, it certainly lightened the load on a young Roethlisberger to say the least.

Only time will tell if Bortles can blossom into the player that Roethlisberger has become, but I do believe that the comparison is valid. Not only does Bortles possess most of the same measureables as Roethlisberger, but they both have had a strikingly similar career path. If Jacksonville can somehow develop the talent around Bortles, or acquire some contributing veterans through free agency, then maybe their soon to be 23 year-old quarterback can lead the Jaguars to success.

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