(03-14-2019, 05:36 PM)FBT Wrote:

(03-14-2019, 03:31 PM)TheO-LineMatters Wrote: Yes, they are. Many of us on this board, maybe even the majority of us were against the extension, because it didn't make sense to extend a guy who showed major consistency issues his entire career. Just because they release him now, when everyone in the world now agrees he's not the future of the team, doesn't make them any less clueless. I would say half of this board would've made better decisions regarding this issue and we wouldn't have been so close to the cap, like we are now.

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I expect them to either say nothing, dance around the issue or say they made a mistake. Saying they didn't regret it, makes them sound either disingenuous or stupid.

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By being dishonest, they apparently don't realize how clueless they sound.

No, they don't sound clueless at all, and here's why.

The extension was alwayys a gamble.  They saw the free agent market for QB last year, and recognized that guys like Cousins and Garoppolo were blowing up the market for veteran QBs.  They also looked at the draft and didn't see anyone who would have been available when they selected that was a viable replacement for Bortles.  Could they have just picked up Bortles option last year and waited to extend him?  Sure.  That's the gamble.  They decided they wanted to clear cap space to bolster the line, so they worked out a deal to add a couple of years to his contract.  It allowed them to sign Norwell. Unfortunately, no team can anticpate the kind of injuries we saw on the line, including to their all pro guard, who has never sustained an injury this severe in his career.  

The fact that they released Bortles shows that they recognized their mistake, and they made the decision not to perpetuate it.  

At the time they extended Bortles, Coughlin said that the extension came with high expectations.  The implication was that Blake had made significant strides in 2017, and that they expected that to continue.  If it had, they'd look like geniuses because they had him locked in until 2020 for a fraction of what it would have cost if he had another good season and continued to improve.  The deal he signed put him in the bottom third of starting QBs compensation.  For the front office, it looked like the safe move.  They gambled, and they lost on that one.  It happens to every team.  It has happened to this team before. Look at the David Garrard situation.  Very much the same as this one.  He got them to the playoffs, got a new deal, and shrunk away.  

At the time they extended Blake, it was a surprise, and I wasn't a huge fan.  I understood the mindset because I had been there for the playoff run, and aside from the Buffalo game (which was still a terrific game that Bortles helped us win, BTW), it was a great run for the team, and Blake was a major contributor to that fact. Like most fans, I hoped that we'd continue to see him rise to the challenge.  That didn't happen.  

The front office isn't going to trash Bortles, so expecting them to say "Yup, we regret it" is laughable.  You start trashing players as you're releasing them, and then guess what happens?  Free agents don't want to play here because of the front office.  They handled this as well as could be expected, as did Bortles.

Oddly enough, if you look here, or on social media like Twitter or FB, there was a ton of support to keep the BOAT here for another year.  There is a ton of anger that he was cut, and not given another year to once again redeem himself.  Look for yourself.  The 50 or so regular contributors here aren't necessarily indicative of the larger fanbase's sentiment.

That point about David Garrard is soooo offbase. "shrunk away?" after 2007, he went on to have a probowl season for us, and his final year here set a career high in TD's and completion %. Despite having no weapons besides MJD. We were still a .500 team for Garrards final years. They moved on from him wayyy too quickly, and frankly it was what sparked the dark age that was this past decade sans the 2017 season. Aside from 2017, the Jaguars have not had more than 5 wins in any season since David Garrard departed. Even MJD couldn't carry us to more W's, and in one of his 3 post Garrard years he won a rushing title... QB play matters. David Garrard was a fantastic QB for this franchise, please don't insinuate that extending him was a mistake. Garrard doesn't get enough credit from our fanbase.

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