Quote:Tough to pin down the "why."


Lots of theories. Injury, coaching, work ethic, no track record of solid fundamentals, etc. Etc.


I personally have a hunch that between Fisch, Scelfo, Olson, Hackett, and House -- he's just had too many cooks in the kitchen and his technique suffered from over-thinking.


If the kid can get a concentrated routine going this offseason to the point where the footwork and throwing motion are second nature in September - then he's got a chance.

 

I think it's easy to blame all these guys, but at some point you have to come back to...Blake isn't good. Let's get something straight, Blake was a project. It was a big reason why I was so against taking him at 3. I watched him at UCF and I saw enough ducks that I didn't get enamored with him. What good is a 6'5, 240 lb QB if he doesn't have a canon arm?

 

Then, I saw his Pro-day coverage. His footwork looked good, his mechanics looked good, and I saw zip on his throws that I never saw at UCF. The Bortles hype train started rolling. Still, I was fully on the TB train, because I still saw Blake as a project. Then, OTAs rolled around and again, the ducks returned. Right before mini-camp, he took time off and work on his mechanics. He comes back and through preseason we saw the guy with good mechanics. Then he was thrusted into play because Henne was bad and gradually throughout the season his mechanics regressed and once again throwing ducks (including that huge wind up motion coming back). And back and forth he went with his mechanics.

 

Then, let's look on the mental aspect.

 

We start with Fisch, and when he was fired one of the quotes was that they wanted the offense simplified. When Olson was let go, again the buzz word was that we needed to simplify the offense. Now, we're seeing Hackett go and while the turnovers are down, what we now see is an incredibly simple game plan that really limits the mistake a QB makes.

 

In 3 years, we have gone through oscillation on his mechanics and continued attempts to simplify the offense. At some point, the blame needs to go to the QB.

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