Quote:First things first: Bortles said he likes where he is mechanically having spent much of the past two months working with his personal quarterbacks coaches in California: Tom House and Adam Dedeaux.

 

“I’ve really enjoyed the time I’ve spent out there,” Bortles said. “I think it’s really been beneficial. I feel really good as far as where I’m at mechanically and how the ball’s coming out and how it’s spinning and all that. I think it’s been good.”

Bortles also said he feels healthy after playing through a shoulder separation and wrist tendinitis at times last season.

“Everything’s good – good to go,” he said.

 

Bortles, who has struggled with mechanics at times in three NFL seasons, threw for a franchise-record 4,428 yards and 35 touchdowns in 2015 after focusing on the area with his quarterbacks coaches in the 2015 offseason. He worked mostly in Jacksonville in the 2016 offseason, and struggled with mechanics throughout most of a season in which he threw 23 touchdowns, 3,905 yards and 16 interceptions.

 

“The first thing we focused on was, probably what everybody would guess … just trying to tighten up the release, make that as quick as possible,” Bortles said.

 

Bortles said that entailed never letting his right wrist get below the elbow while throwing, and “trying to keep that parallel and not dropping down.”

“That was probably the main focus and then just a couple tweaks here and there in different things,” he said.

 

Bortles, the No. 3 overall selection by the Jaguars in the 2014 NFL Draft, said while the issue didn’t take long to fix, the first week “wasn’t pretty.”

“It didn’t look good and that’s a part of it,” he said. “When you’re trying to change things, it’s not going to be great but we were able to kind of hash that out and now it’s going well.”