Jacksonville Jaguars Fan Forums

Quote:You wanted the rookie, you got the rookie.

Exactly. It's fun watching those who were howling to put Bortles in sooner rather than later. They're the same people who are hammering the team for the offense struggling.

Quote:Exactly. It's fun watching those who were howling to put Bortles in sooner rather than later. They're the same people who are hammering the team for the offense struggling.

Because the offense was so great with Henne in there?

Quote:Because the offense was so great with Henne in there?

.


That's beside the point. Henne was always expected to be a placeholder until Bortles was ready to assume the starting role. The rookie wasn't ready when they made the switch, plain and simple.


Hopefully, starting him too soon won't undo his career as it sit for Gabbert. I don't think it will, but you never know.

I do not feel a rookie QB gains something from keeping a bench warm, but I could be wrong.  I have been wrong in the past.  I think if the situation allowed it, and if the veteran QB was a great proven QB like Favre, Mannning, Brady, Rodgers etc I can see the value of watching & learning.  The problem is when you take a QB so high in the 1st round draft its usually because you need him immediately, as the Jaguars did when they drafted Blake & Blaine.

 

I felt Blake showed a lot of promise in preseason, but the starting OLine was simply horrible.  The injuries that plagued the team, and lack of talent combined with a bad OC was the offense demise.


Lets hope that Olsen has magic in that bag, and that Dave Caldwell does his magic in Free Agency & the draft...

I hope not to watch the mess on the field that weve seen for the last few years...

Quote:.


That's beside the point. Henne was always expected to be a placeholder until Bortles was ready to assume the starting role. The rookie wasn't ready when they made the switch, plain and simple.


Hopefully, starting him too soon won't undo his career as it sit for Gabbert. I don't think it will, but you never know.

 

Well, from what I saw from Henne, minus the miraculous 1st half against the Eagles (which we may never see from Henne again)  Henne wasn't ready to be a functioning NFL QB either.

 

Henne was absolutely GOD-AWFUL out there and showed no signs of improving AT ALL.

 

Gus really had no choice but to put Bortles in, especially considering the way he played in the preseason.

 

Henne's GOD AWFUL play forced Gus' hand to play Bortles, that's just the way I see it.

 

The Jags were on pace to lose to the clots 60-0 if Henne had stayed in at QB.

There are a few commonalities amongst Gabbert, Henne, and Bortles. They all played behind a terrible O-line, they all played with rookie wide receivers, they had no running game support.

 

A large reason for this is due to the path Dave and Gus have laid. They put these guys on the field so they own the results.

 

Regards....................the Chiefjag

Quote:There are a few commonalities amongst Gabbert, Henne, and Bortles. They all played behind a terrible O-line, they all played with rookie wide receivers, they had no running game support.

 

A large reason for this is due to the path Dave and Gus have laid. They put these guys on the field so they own the results.

 

Regards....................the Chiefjag

Didn't MJD win the rushing title with Gabbert as his QB?

Quote:.


That's beside the point. Henne was always expected to be a placeholder until Bortles was ready to assume the starting role. The rookie wasn't ready when they made the switch, plain and simple.

Hopefully, starting him too soon won't undo his career as it sit for Gabbert. I don't think it will, but you never know.

 

If a QB is destined to be a franchise guy he'll be a franchise guy, regardless of good or bad he played in his rookie season. I'm sure David Caldwell and Gus Bradley aren't regretting their decision to play Blake, he came away with valuable experience you simply can't learn from watching on the sidelines, he'll be fine.

It takes a certain mental toughness (a short memory) for a QB to succeed at this level, similar to closers in baseball. You learn from your mistakes and move on, Blake (from and outsiders point of view) has the mental makeup to eventually develop into an elite QB, the kid is mentally tough as rocks.

Quote:Well, from what I saw from Henne, minus the miraculous 1st half against the Eagles (which we may never see from Henne again)  Henne wasn't ready to be a functioning NFL QB either.

 

Henne was absolutely GOD-AWFUL out there and showed no signs of improving AT ALL.

 

Gus really had no choice but to put Bortles in, especially considering the way he played in the preseason.

 

Henne's GOD AWFUL play forced Gus' hand to play Bortles, that's just the way I see it.

 

The Jags were on pace to lose to the clots 60-0 if Henne had stayed in at QB.

Gus had a choice.  There's always a choice.  He decided to bow to the wishes of the fans who were howling for Bortles to start regardless of whether he was ready or not because he couldn't be any worse than what they were seeing from Chad.  Of course, once they discovered that the rookie was going to struggle as badly as he did, they turned on him too, so it's pretty much status quo around here. 

 

I don't care how "GOD AWFUL" Henne was.  That doesn't make Bortles more ready for the job.  There were several factors that assured no QB was going to be successful this year. The line was still not fully determined until the week of opening day.  Even then, it was in a state of flux with a guy coming back from a season ending injury at LT, a RT who was lacking the experience, a rookie guard, and a marginal center.  Within 3 weeks, the team had made multiple changes to the line to address the struggles we saw in the first couple of games. 

 

Meanwhile, there was no running game.  The FA brought in to help with that was hurt.  The guys backing him up were marginal at best and still needed time to develop behind a line that couldn't create running lanes if their lives depended on it.

 

We trotted out 1 veteran receiver and a host of rookies.

 

Nothing about the above scenario screamed success even if you had a veteran presence better than what Henne had, and quite frankly, there wasn't a whole lot available to this team that would be considered even remotely better than Henne in order to upgrade the backup position.

 

Anyone with a clue knew this offense was going to struggle this year.  They also recognized that there was potential risk to putting the rookie in before he was ready because he was in the midst of making significant changes to his mechanics.  Putting him in before he was ready would assure he'd regress because once he was the starter, there wasn't time to continue that development.  His focus would be on the game plan each week.

 

The naysayers who just wanted Henne out got their wish, and what have they done since?  They've hammered every aspect of the offensive struggles this team faced, as if this was somehow a surprise to them when it happened. 

 

The hope is that, unlike Gabbert, Bortles isn't damaged by the pounding he took as a rookie.  He didn't appear to be shell shocked, but we'll have to wait and see.  Ultimately, in my opinion, I still think the best approach was to wait to insert Bortles into the game plan.  They had their hand forced and weren't able to do so, and the rest is history.  Hopefully it doesn't spell the ruination of another QB. 

Quote:If a QB is destined to be a franchise guy he'll be a franchise guy, regardless of good or bad he played in his rookie season. I'm sure David Caldwell and Gus Bradley aren't regretting their decision to play Blake, he came away with valuable experience you simply can't learn from watching on the sidelines, he'll be fine.

I understand this, but it's never been done where a rookie steps into a situation where he's asked to run the offense for a team that trotted out up to 8 different rookie starters on that side of the ball during the course of the year.  Yes, it's valuable experience, and hopefully he'll learn from it and be a better player for it.  That's not a guarantee it will happen though. 

 

I agree with you that more than likely he'll be fine.  But, he clearly regressed during the course of the season, and most of his struggles were tied to the fact that he couldn't maintain the strides he'd made in his mechanics.  With an off season to work with the coaching staff and his offensive skill players, we'll see him take the next step.  He's saying and doing all the right things now.  That doesn't mean it was the right decision to throw him out there as early on as they did.   It's also unfair that the same people who were griping for him to take over as the starter subsequently turn around and bash him and call him a bust based on his performance for the entire season, yet they do so just the same. 

Quote:I understand this, but it's never been done where a rookie steps into a situation where he's asked to run the offense for a team that trotted out up to 8 different rookie starters on that side of the ball during the course of the year.  Yes, it's valuable experience, and hopefully he'll learn from it and be a better player for it.  That's not a guarantee it will happen though. 

 

I agree with you that more than likely he'll be fine.  But, he clearly regressed during the course of the season, and most of his struggles were tied to the fact that he couldn't maintain the strides he'd made in his mechanics.  With an off season to work with the coaching staff and his offensive skill players, we'll see him take the next step.  He's saying and doing all the right things now.  That doesn't mean it was the right decision to throw him out there as early on as they did.   It's also unfair that the same people who were griping for him to take over as the starter subsequently turn around and bash him and call him a bust based on his performance for the entire season, yet they do so just the same. 

 

Sorry but I have to be blunt, anyone that's declaring Blake Bortles (or any of the rookie QB's) a bust after one season is an idiot, or irrational, such a person doesn't even deserve a response for such a ridiculous comment. Blake certainly did regress as the season went along but I (think) that has more to do with Jedd Fisch and the inexperience of our former offensiive coaching staff than Blake.

Quote:Didn't MJD win the rushing title with Gabbert as his QB?

 

He absolutely did and all the Jags QBs could muster up was a measly 5 wins that season.

 

1 for McCown and 4 for BG.

 

I do wonder what BBs could do with a running game like that?

While many will believe it's better to throw the rookie out there to learn from his mistakes it's also a concern. The more practice a person gets the fewer mistakes he'll make in live action. But nonetheless people with little patience who got what they wanted saw him regress and ultimately finish the season dead last in QB rating.

 

Regards...................the Chiefjag

Quote:he doesn't know how to coach

 

we've watched the games

 

you're in denial if you disagree

 

time management is such a trivial thing for good coaches and how often did we see stupid timeout after stupid timeout

 

 

I know this thread has steered well away from any timeout/time management discussion, but I remembered this post and found it funny how this year's SB winning coach made two huge time management blunders in just this years playoffs.

 

First it was the Ravens game where he had Brady kneel at the end, allowing the Ravens to get the ball back and have a shot at game winning hail mary.

 

Then in the SB, he didn't take his timeouts after Lynch's run to the one yard line.  No coach in his right mind would take 20 seconds and 2 TOs over ~50 seconds to a minute and no TOs, or potentially one TO.

 

Evidently time management isn't a trivial thing for good coaches.

Quote:Exactly. It's fun watching those who were howling to put Bortles in sooner rather than later. They're the same people who are hammering the team for the offense struggling.

absolutely lol!

I was HOPING they would put Bortles in sooner rather than later... so he could get the oh so valuable experience NOW when SOOOO many other rookies were learning on the fly as well.

NOW....this coming year I'm HOPING lol that Bortles AND a good portion of the other young guys have a good 2nd year

Quote:This. I put more blame on the GM than the coaches for going overboard blowing up the roster. Guys like Daryl Smith and Eugene Monroe should have been re-signed for some veteran presence.


I think Bradley and his staff have done a great job of getting production out of late round draft picks and UDFAs, but you can't win in the NFL without players in their prime.

With you 100%

Henne couldn't even get a first down in three consecutive games. If we didn't insert Bortles we would've been riding the Gusbus right off the Modis

Quote:Henne couldn't even get a first down in three consecutive games. If we didn't insert Bortles we would've been riding the Gusbus right off the Modis

I concur

Quote:Henne couldn't even get a first down in three consecutive games. If we didn't insert Bortles we would've been riding the Gusbus right off the Modis

Henne was also getting destroyed behind our line also. I'm of the mindset that there really was no "right" answer here.

 

Leave Henne in and risk exactly what you said. Put Blake in way before he's ready and let him get pounded (while learning on the fly) behind this porous line. If that isn't a no-win (no pun intended) situation right there, I don't know what is.