Quote:The fact that he set franchise records with Officer Doofey as his coach and no semblence of a running and showed immediate improvement under a real coach in a matter of 2 weeks means a lot.

Yes, but consider what his performance the past two weeks really mean; to suggest that Gus Bradley had Bortles so 'hamstrung' that he couldn't even pass the football very well is a very far reach of reason. This is not the performance you expect from an adult, much less a professional sportsman. If that is so, then how to explain the sudden apparent turn around in his performance?

 

One possible answer is that he (Bortles) was intentionally not trying to be successful in order to get Bradley fired. This may be possible, but it's also a reach. Another more plausible reason is that Bortles realized that with Gus getting fired that his position was also in question and he got motivated to start putting forth the effort to at least try to look good. And he did look better for those two games, but taken as a whole (including last season and the circumstances by which he was gaining the kind of stats he did) Bortles just doesn't look that good. I don't think he is a lost cause as a quarterback, but he certainly doesn't impress me as worthy of the 'franchise quarterback' tag here.

---