I spent some time thinking about why the game yesterday was so irritating, and I think, at least for myself, it's because I was so completely right about the panthers while also being so simultaneously wrong about Bortles and the Jaguars.

 

I had Cam completely pegged, he's a guy who is at best treading water while the panthers front office prays they can manage to make the team around him good enough to somehow carry him in a league where all the rules are slanted in favor of teams with great QBs. I also had their defense pegged, good enough up front but not great on the back end or at rushing the passer. They only succeeded in rushing the passer after Sam Young, the human turnstile, entered the game. I had the panthers offense completely pegged, too. No playmakers, cover their tight end and their WRs will fail at their jobs.

 

No, the infuriating thing about the Jaguars is I thought that Bortles was actually growing as a player and would show he's not the same pick-six throwing garbage that we saw last year. He'd make better decisions and quality throws to guys getting open and fighting for balls.

 

Instead Bortles couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, and the rest of the team wasn't good enough to carry him against even a team as talent poor as the panthers. That's what really stings, that I thought for a moment the Jaguars had finally solved the QB problem and found a guy that could be a legit top 10 in the league passer. Looks like I was totally wrong. He was tentative, he was inaccurate, and he looked like he still had no idea what was going on in front of him on the field.

 

It sucked.

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