Quote:Yeah, I can see both sides of this argument and I think they're both valid. It's a tough call; on the one hand, you've got Bortles, whom I shall polity describe as 'a known entity'. He is at or near the bottom in too many categories that are significant for a quarterback. Too much of his positive stats have been gained during what amounts to 'garbage time'.

 

Then you have Allen, who is largely an unknown. He played a couple of pre-season games and didn't exactly set the world on fire. He has never taken a single snap in a regular season game and has probably not had any significant time under center with the first team since the season started. He didn't give any indication that he was a 'world beater' during the pre-season, and playing him before he is actually ready for this level could be bad for him in the long run.

 

We all remember Blaine Gabbert and what 'throwing him to the wolves' before he was really ready did to him psychologically. Do we really want to chance repeating that mistake with Allen... who may or may not be worth much anyway over a season which is already, for all practical purposes, over for us?

 

I'm not concerned with this season any more; stick a fork in it folks... we're done. At best, all we can do with the remaining games is to use them to develop talent we already have on the roster. Since I anticipate that we will be looking at a new coach next season, any prior evaluation of talent will be pretty meaningless and therefore not a good reason to throw unprepared players to the wolves.

 

Still, in the final analysis, the only meaningful way to prepare for real NFL games is to play in real NFL games. From that point of view, we're in an ideal situation since the season is a wash and we've nothing to lose by playing inexperienced guys. They get real life experience without the pressure of any expectation of actually winning, unlike with Gabbert who was looked at with high expectation (in view of how high he was drafted by Gene).

 

So when push comes to shove, I say yes; play him; but, with the caveat that there's no pressure to win. Essentially, we turn our remaining games into 'pre-season' games.

 

I think there's a bit of difference here with a lot of the "thrown to the wolves" scenario.

 

Blaine Gabbert came in on a shortened off-season, with a weak supporting cast, bad OL. The same can be said of Blake (minus the shortened off-season).

 

We're now 14 games into the year. He's had plenty of time to sit and learn the game. He has good receivers and frankly the Oline's pass blocking has held up for the most part this season. If he doesn't see real NFL time this season, even if he outplays Blake in preseason next year (or whoever else is in competition) there will always be that lingering question of "well we haven't seen him in a real game".

 

We have Houston, Tennessee, and Indy coming up...the three teams in our division. What best way to evaluate him than against three division opponents all going after the division crown late in the season?

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