A special "Thank You" goes out to Mark Lamping, Tom Coughlin and Doug Marrone for the continued mind games with Blake Bortles which ultimately could result in the demise of what otherwise would be a promising season. With a huge, huge match up with Carolina looking at Everbank this weekend, we have now resorted to even more mind games with Blake Bortles, making him take share snaps with Chad Henne and have created all sorts of unnecessary distractions. Lets discuss this recent turn of events and subsequent digression....

1) Week one: The message becomes loud and clear to Bortles...one incompletion = warning and two incompletions = benching. All Bortles did that game was lead his team to a win on the home turf of the defending champion Patriots, and gets benched after going 3/5 (60%) throwing the football. The subtle mind games begin. Absolutely  no reason not to come back to Bortles in the 4th quarter of this game to give him another chance. We had nothing going, did not score and were completely stagnant in the 4th quarter. So it's ok for Chad Henne to be stagnant in the 4th quarter of the game but not ok for Blake Bortles to throw only two incompletions? What a horrid, horrible message of inconsistency presented by management. Ex. "OK Leonard, it's ok for you to fumble cut Chris it's ok for you not to". Total crap.

2) Week two: In a highly spirited match up of Ponce De Leon Cup Rivals (throw the records out the window) Blake Bortles completes 6/10 (60%) passes, is yanked, and the Jaguars never recover. Whether it's Tom Brady, Peyton Manning or whomever, or Bart Starr, the great quarterbacks of our generation need time to get into a rhythm and flow, and Blake was not afforded this opportunity. We scored 8 points. Hey Marrone - this isn't baseball and Blake's not a pitcher. Put him back in! No consideration was given to this highly emotional game that saw the return of former Jaguar former 70th over all pick Bryan Anger suit up and play for our Tampa. This right here would throw anyone off their game, not to mention a quarterback who's confidence was shaken by the week before by game mismanagement by it's own team faulty leadership. On top of this, the play calls by Marrone to run play actions where there wasn't a running back can't be blamed on Bortles but for some reason are and let me guess, we are going to blame Bortles for the faulty goal line calls from the one yard line at the end of the game? While we are at it, should we blame Bortles for the market crash in 2008 and the Angolo  - Portuguese Crisis in 1889? Come on now. I don't mean to be that guy and be a conspiracy theorist, but all of this can only be construed as an attempt to draw attention away from the porous kicking by Jason Myers and managements inability to land a quality kicker when Josh Scobee is unsigned and readily available. 

So now where are we...well, to anyone who knows anything about football this is 100% an ownership generated quarterback controversy that was drawn to create publicity for the franchise. We don't need this or any more sort of distractions. Keep Bortles as the starter, let Henne hold on extra points or if you must play both, or be creative and find a way to get them both on the field at the same time. Either way though, the blame game must stop and lets move forward with Bortles. This is no way to coach, no way to teach and no way to treat a human being.


Note: The highly prestigious Ponce De Leon Cup is named in honor of Spanish Conquistador Juan Ponce De Leon who discovered the great state of Florida in 1513. The NFL team in Florida with the best record at the end of the regular NFL season (Thursdays game did not count or even matter so I'm not sure what the fuss about Bortles is) will be awarded the Ponce De Leon Cup.  It should be noted that the integrity of this award is very important, so incidents such as the Miami Dolphins bullying incidents of 2013-14 cannot and will not be tolerated and could/will lead to the expulsion from PDLC consideration.

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