Blake Bortles is quickly becoming a bust. The Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback was a No. 3 overall pick just three years ago, but he’s already reminding a lot of folks of the team’s last failed first-round experiment, Blaine Gabbert.
What’s scary is Bortles appears to be regressing. His rate-based statistics plummeted from Year 2 to Year 3, and he ranked in the bottom three in football last season when it came to completion percentage, yards per attempt and passer rating.
The Jags have won just 11 of Bortles’ 45 career starts, and Pro Football Focus rated the Central Florida product as the third-worst qualified passer in the league last season (the two guys below him—Brock Osweiler and Ryan Fitzpatrick—are no longer employed by the teams they started for). And his passer rating on throws that traveled 20-plus yards was 17.5. Think about that. Seventeen point five! A total of 30 other quarterbacks attempted at least 25 such throws, and none had a rating below 45.0.
Went ahead and put together this Blake Bortles lowlight reel for the 2016 season #Jaguars #trash #basura pic.twitter.com/m8vDffalmG
— KTA (@keiteay) December 13, 2016
The good news is Bortles has more support than ever. The Jaguars have three solid, young, improving receivers in Allen Robinson, Marqise Lee and Allen Hurns, potential cornerstone offensive tackles after trading for Branden Albert and drafting Cam Robinson and the Offensive Rookie of the Year favorite, running back Leonard Fournette.
The odds still aren’t in Bortles’ favor, but it should also be noted that John Elway threw more picks (52) than Bortles (51) in his first three seasons. So did Joe Namath and Terry Bradshaw, although that was a very different time.
Regardless, Elway was a mediocre quarterback in his third season and became a Pro Bowler in Year 4. Bradshaw wasn’t good until his sixth season in the league. And among the 18 quarterbacks who started at least 40 games in Eli Manning’s first four years, Manning ranked dead last with a passer rating of 73.4.
But it’s hard to find other examples of quarterbacks who have redeemed themselves after starting as slowly as Bortles has. There are much, much better odds he becomes another Gabbert. But, you know the drill…