Quote:Unless you're in the meetings during the preseason to know what the focus of the play calling will be for any preseason game, you have no idea what they were working on with either player out there on the field.  One thing we do know is that they didn't really game plan for these games beyond a minimal bit of scripting for the 3rd game. 

 

You act like Atlanta trotted out their starting defense AND their entire defensive playbook in that 4th game.  That wasn't the case.  Bortles did face the first team defense, but they weren't throwing anything at him that was even remotely close to what he'd expect to see for a regular season game. 

 

Tony Boselli was just talking about that this morning saying anyone who is using preseason performance as the end all for determining how ready a player is doesn't really have a clue what they're watching.  That's a guy who played in the league at a very high level who is saying that preseason performances are nice, but they're not necessarily indicative of what you should expect when the games count. 

 

Tony thinks the team should move to start Bortles sooner rather than later, but he said that it's not based on what he did in the preseason.  He also said that as a player, he completely understands the approach they're taking, and appreciates the fact that this staff is trying to look out for a player instead of just throwing him to the wolves.  Pardon me if I take his opinion of practice games performance with a little more regard than, well, yours. 

 

The first point is true, but pretty irrelevant. We don't know what they were focusing on, but we do know that guys run patterns down the field on practically every play. Henne constantly goes to the checkdown not because the coaching staff thinks he needs more practice doing what he's done his entire career, he constantly goes to the checkdown because that's how he plays.

 

The rest of your post was already addressed by me. No team plays in the preseason like they're going to play in the regular season. Henne faced vanilla just like Bortles did. The difference is that Bortles clearly sees the field and has a desire to always attack the furthest downfield that he can while Henne is only capable of the opposite.

 

Like I said, Bortles did what is expect of an elite talent in the preseason (made everyone on the other team look outplayed) while Henne did what is expected of a backup QB talent during the preseason and every other game in his career and made the other team look good.

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