Quote:While I enjoy some of the posts you've added this week. This is not one of them. Hard to use this statistical analysis to mean much for tomorrow's matchup.


Past performance is no guarantee of future success or failure.

 

Good statistical data is almost always the best indicator of what to expect. The problem is that this isn't particularly good statistical data. How guys graded out as rookies playing on a team full of rookies doesn't tell anyone much about whether they'll play better as their career progresses. It's especially misleading for guys like Bortles and Alan Robinson as Bortles was a poorly prepared rookie that suffered behind the worst offensive line in the league and a corps of rookie receivers and Robinson only started something like 8 games and was injured for the last six just as his performance was climbing. Robinson going down for the year really hurt Bortles performance a lot, he was clearly the #1 WR for the Jaguars, and the other WRs didn't step up.

 

Before Robinson went down Bortles had thrown for 336, 159, 221, 247, and 290 yards with five TDs in the last five games that Robinson started. In the five games after Robinson went down Bortles threw for 146, 194, 205, 210, and 115 yards with three TDs over that span.

 

The team around Bortles just imploded last season, which is why keeping decent health along the offensive line and WRs is so critical this year, and it's utter [BLEEP] that Bortles already lost Julius Thomas for such an extended period. If the weapons are there and the protection is even just lower middle of the pack Bortles will perform, but it would have taken a real experienced elite level QB like Tom Brady to have made what Bortles had at the end of last season work even a little bit.

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