Quote:Maybe this will help you with some outside perspective, which is 100% accurate and courtesy of ESPN this morning (mid-season grading of their preseason predictions).

 

Blake Bortles will not live up to the hype

Piling up touchdowns and yardage in less-meaningful situations allowed Bortles to produce inflated conventional stats last season. His 4,428 yards and 35 touchdowns supported a feel-good storyline: rising young QB lifts long-suffering franchise over the hump.  Bortles has piled up a league-high 40 percent of his career passing yards while trailing by at least 10 points. Those are tough situations for any quarterback, and some were of his own making. Bortles' 3.3 percent interception rate since entering the league ranks 32nd out of 33 quarterbacks with at least 500 pass attempts since then. The rate is 2.3 percent (25th) when his team is tied or leading.  The 42 coaches and evaluators polled for my annual QB Tiers project weren't entirely sold. Some questioned Bortles' mechanics. Several simply thought the Jaguars already would have enjoyed more team success if Bortles were playing as well as the stats suggested.  "Everybody wants to anoint him," one general manager said before the season. "I don't see it. He is 1-13 on the road. How's that for a stat?"  A closer look at advanced stats showed Bortles ranking 29th out of 29 qualifying quarterbacks in Total QBR over the second half of last season. He ranks 27th this season, ahead of only Brock Osweiler, Ryan Tannehill, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Case Keenum.