Quote:I think Billick was absolutely right about the state of the roster. It was irresponsibly inexperienced, and that falls on Caldwell (who acknowledged as much). However, the thing people aren't mentioning with regard to Fisch's firing is Bortles' performance as the year went on.

 

Remember when he had the highest completion percentage among rookies, and a high YPA. Completion percentage fell below 60 percent by the end of the year, with YPA falling to around 6. There's a huge drop off in quality of play, and that came AFTER the bye.

 

I'm not trying to defend Jedd Fisch, because I didn't watch enough of your games last season to have a fair opinion on him, but this could also be on opponent DCs having more game-tape of Bortles and starting to expose his weaknesses more as the season went on. Were the teams starting to blitz more against him in the latter part of the season? I think I've read something about that in an article comparing rookie QBs a month or two ago. Blitzing usually works well against inexperienced quarterbacks. It happened to rookie (or other young) QBs before that they were looking good in their first few starts and then they started to slow down. Of course it's the progress a QB make between his rookie and 2nd year that mostly determine which way his career would go in the future. I still think Bortles has everything to be a good or potentially great QB. Now it's up to your new offensive coaching staff to develop Bortles and other young players around him. 

---