Quote:I don't think it is a problem with his arm or mechanics, per se. I think the problem is in his head. He looks lost to me, like something other than the game is occupying his thoughts during the game.
I agree. I just re-watched the first half of Thursday's game and he just didn't look right. You could see it in his body language. I think that he's lost confidence and is pretty much kind of "shell shocked". You could also see a kind of "here we go again" expression after the first couple of 3 and outs. One thing that I did note... during one of the time outs called when he went to the sideline he went straight up to Chad Henne. He didn't approach any of the coaches/coordinators.
Surely it's a combination of things that are preventing Blake form performing like he did last year.
I think poor technique crept in when he wasn't paying enough attention and now his head has been affected by repeated poor performances.
Clearly his throwing motion is more elongated, his footwork regressed, and he's locked onto one receiver more often than last year.
It's not any "one thing," it's a combination of things that are now topped off with a loss in confidence and lack of faith in coaching. (the latter being perfectly understandable)
One play in particular that screamed regression (and maybe loss of confidence) to me was in the fourth quarter Thursday when he dropped the ball to his waist twice before finally throwing behind Lee on a crossing route. You'd think after two INTs on the same throw he'd have that particular play cleaned up, but it was ugly and his body language afterward was telling.
While it would have been a tough catch, it was technically a catchable ball, but there was literally zero reason for it to be placed so badly besides his wonky mechanics.
If it is the fact that his arm is tired, it got tired before the pre-season games was over. He has been off target all season.
Quote:It's like you're looking to discount last year as a fluke or something. Forget the stats.... if you watched the games last year then you know Bortles was throwing extremely well downfield. If you think he wasn't, then you really don't know your football. I'm not discounting that he had a couple great WRs out there, but Bortles was seeing then get open deep and delivered strike after strike.
Simply put, if you're trying to say that Blake is playing the same as he did last year but last year he was just lucky, then you're seriously deluding yourself.
no, Blake was much better last year. He showed good improvement from year 1 to year 2. A lot of his stuff was with softer defenses when we were already losing though. He rarely lit it up in the first half.
this year he's much worse. I don't see him as optimistically as you do. I think he doesn't have many redeeming qualities. I predict he will start for maybe another year in the NFL (2017) and then will become a backup.