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Jaguarmeister · 05-28-2016, 12:51 PM

Quote:You say that but we either had the lead, tied or within striking distance 11 of our 16 games and in the 4th quarter the defense had alot to do with us having blown lead or couldn't get a crucial stop in the 4th quarter when needed? People keep mention his turnovers in crucial time and my question to you and anyone else who reads this is name the games where he cost us the games? I respect everything you saying and if you can do that for me then i'll join the chorus who are quick to criticize his play?

This has been chronicled over and over again by myself and others ad nauseum, so rather than retype everything out I'll just quote myself and point you to other threads. Bring your homerism to the stadium on Sundays, but consider trying to be more objective regarding Blake's 2015 season.

Forum thread on how detrimental Defensive TDs are:

http://jungle.jaguars.com/index.php?/top...n-winning/

Quoting myself from several threads in Dec 2015:

Quote:The INT right before half was at least a 6 point swing and the blame for it falls squarely on Bortles. We should have at least walked away with a field goal and ended the half, instead the Falcons not only prevented us from getting points but got a field goal themselves. The interception took place at the goal line with 11 seconds left on the clock. Prior to the play, the chance that the Falcons would put any more points on the board before the half was essentially nil. Thankfully Bortles was able to run down the defender and tackle him at our 15 yard line to prevent a 100 yard return pick 6. Coincidentally, we lost by 6.



As good as he is most of the time, he's scored entirely too many points for the other team this year.

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I would take Blake in a league redraft over at least 25 of the other starting QBs in this league right now if not more. That being said, you're not being honest with yourself by looking at statistics only. Not all interceptions are created equal. Some are harmless (i.e. Bombs that are intercepted that equal a punt), some are bad and some are really bad/devastating (i.e. Throwing pick 6's or INTs deep in your own territory). I was too young to watch marino's early years, but what I do remember later in his career is he didn't make the devastating mistakes that Blake has made too often through his career so far. Comparing interception percentages without using the eye test is at best naive and at worst dishonest. Go look up percentage chance of winning when you give up a defensive TD without getting one back, it's not good. (Blake is responsible for several this year). Also, Blake is tied for the league worst for INTs inside your own 40 with Peyton Manning with 9 (meaning the other team is essentially in scoring position if the INT didn't result in a pick 6 which 3 of the 9 of Blake's did).

Pro football reference wouldn't let me go back further than '94, but using your two examples of Marino and Favre I found the following info: Marino threw a total of 9 INTs inside his own 40 in 4 seasons from 94 thru 97. He threw 7 in his final season in '99. '98 was reporting no one in the league threw an INT inside their own 40 so I'm assuming something was wrong with the site regarding that season.

Favre threw 9 or more INTs inside his own 40 four separate times from '94 thru his final season in 2010 (excluding '98). In '99 he threw 10 inside his 40 and the packers won 8 games. In '05 he threw 13 inside his 40 and the packers won 4 games. In '08 he threw 10 inside his 40 and the Jets won 9 games and finally in 2010 he threw 9 inside his own 40 and the Vikings won 6 games.

Blake had 9 last year and he has 9 this year with three games to go.

Does this stat by itself prove anything? No, but there does appear to be a correlation.

You can want Gus gone, that's ok. But you can't keep holding up Blake as God and Gus as the bumbling idiot "backed up" by your narrow grasp of statistics. Your QB putting your defense in bad spots matters. Hopefully today was the beginning of Blake throwing less INTs and especially back breaking INTs. It's amazing how everything can appear wonderful and rosey, even a bad defense like ours, when you get up big on a team like we did today. And actually the defense (Branch specifically) changed the whole complexion of this game with the sack fumble.

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QBs INT rates improve with time? Marino's was 2.5% his first two years. His career rate was 3.0%. No one is saying Marino never threw a pick 6. But I've already illustrated earlier in the thread he didn't throw INTs deep in his own territory as consistently as Blake does, at least not after '94 with the data that was available to me.

Even the greats are going to rack up some negative stats if they play long enough. Marino played in 242 regular season games and 18 playoff games. If we're just focusing on pick 6's, Marino had 30. Bortles has thrown 7 in 27 games. If he's fortunate enough to play as long, he's on pace for 67 pick 6's and would be far and away the all time leader in that stat.

This doesn't include the inordinate amount of INTs he's thrown deep in his own territory which I've already illustrated earlier but that you seem content to ignore. You shouldn't need these numbers to remind you what your eyes have already shown you. He hasn't had a devastating mistake in the last two games, so maybe he's turning the corner. And if he does, the sky is the limit. The high snap TD in the Titans game was on Wiz. But he did throw an INT inside his 40 to the Chargers right before the half which led to a TD. We lost the game by 6.

Your argument from thread to thread has been that Blake's INTs are normal and that the responsibility for losses lies solely on the defense and Gus and that nobody knows football but you. It should be abundantly clear to anyone reading this and/or actually watching the games that your argument and self proclaimed knowledge is laughable.

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When you spot the other team a TD, you aren't likely going to win the game. Blake also threw an INT on our 41 yard line against the Bucs that led to a touchdown. I'm not hanging all 7 of those points on Blake, but he essentially put them just outside of field goal range. It was going to be really tough for most defenses in the league to prevent them from getting at least a field goal. The narrative that the losses this year are 100% the defense's fault are not only tired, they're wrong.

I expect Blake to improve decision making next year and I'm fine with where he's at this year overall, but he doesn't get a pass for his contribution to the loss column this year. Part of it is on him. We seem to have a significant portion of the fan base becoming enamored with his season stat line. A stat line can't tell the whole story by itself.

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The two fumbles I mentioned weren't on [Bortles], but they weren't on our D either which flies in the face of a narrative that's often pushed around here. I get that this franchise has been QB starved and that Bortles is on a trajectory to be our best QB ever, but let's try to remain objective on his play this year. It's not just about the INT number. It's the situations surrounding those INTs. He leads the league with INTs inside his own 40 with 10 and three of those resulted in Pick 6's. He also threw 2 INTs on the opponents goal line this year which is like taking points off the board for us. His INTs were usually really bad this year. Pointing that out doesn't mean you hate Bortles or are wishing for another QB. He did really well keeping us in games that we would have been blown out of in years past. However, if that part of his game doesn't improve next year and beyond, then we can expect to continue seeing inconsistency from this team even if the defense gets better. The argument that we're a decent defense away from the playoffs is a little oversimplified. Maybe we were this year, but the division was garbage this year and it's likely to be rare for a similar scenario to play out like this again.