I'll admit that at one time I was suspicious of Bortle's fast rise on the draft boards.  It reminded me of Gabbert's rise.

 

But then I looked at it further.  Their rises weren't all that similar at all.  


Gabbert's rise came in a large part due to the fact that Andrew Luck decided not to declare.  That left no outstanding QB prospects (a bleacherreport article talks about this even back as far as 2011 before Gabbert was drafted: [url=http://bleacherreport.com/articles/579633-blaine-gabbert-an-analysis-of-why-hes-a-fringe-first-rounder)%C2][/url]

 


Gabbert had his value artificially inflated by a major prospect like Andrew Luck dropping out.  If Luck declared in 2011, Blaine Gabbert probably would never have been drafted in the 1st round.  And that might have ended up benefiting him (or it might not have).  

 

Bortles value was rising throughout the year.  Johnny Manziel was still the big name on campus, and he declared as expected.  So it wasn't lack of outstanding QB prospects that caused Bortles to shoot up the draft boards.  It was, as some have stated, the national media catching up with what people already knew.  

 

Yeah, Bortles and Gabbert both have the measurements.  But those measurements are a positive, or else those measurements wouldn't be the ones that were considered positive.  There was nothing wrong with Gabbert's measurements -- it was everything else.

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