Pressure, Surrounding Offense Forcing a Blake Bortles Regression in Jacksonville
I've waited a long time to talk about this topic, in the hopes that we wouldn't have to talk about it. But after another ugly performance that led the Jaguars to a grand total of three points against the Colts, it's time to acknowledge it: Quarterback Blake Bortles has regressed over the middle portion of the season.
Through Week 11's games, Bortles was dead last in Football Outsiders' DYAR among quarterbacks with 100 or more passes. After Week 12's numbers are tallied, he'll likely be pushing dead last in DVOA as well.
That's not something on the typical quarterback media narrative path, where a quarterback struggles and grows from it. But, here we are: The flashes that showed up in Bortles' first few starts of the season have gotten less and less frequent. Against Indianapolis last week, Bortles looked borderline Gabbertian, and I don't throw that term around lightly.
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There hasn't really been one thing holding Bortles back—he's been a victim of many different issues: mechanics and footwork, coaching and timing, the talent of his teammates and his own skill set. There's plenty of blame to go around. Here are what I see as the main issues:
1) The Supporting Cast
Let's start with the offensive line, which had been a disaster even before Bortles was inserted. The Jaguars have allowed 43 sacks, last in the league, and also rank last in Football Outsiders' Adjusted Sack Rate.
Here's how the Jacksonville offensive line has stacked up, according to Pro Football Focus. There's been some improvement in the middle, but the tackles have been ghastly.
| Zane Beadles | OG | 725 | +6.3 |
| Brandon Linder | OG | 604 | +5.1 |
| Sam Young | OT | 143 | +2.8 |
| Cameron Bradfield | OT | 111 | -3.9 |
| Jacques McClendon | OG/C | 195 | -4.3 |
| Luke Bowanko | C | 607 | -5.2 |
| Austin Pastzor | OT | 471 | -6.6 |
| Luke Joeckel | OT | 669 | -9.4 |
It's fair to say that Luke Joeckel has played like a bust so far. Austin Pastzor hasn't had a great season. Injuries have forced inept backup linemen onto the field. This is something that Bortles has no control over, but which has had a big impact on how he's been forced to play.
The other consideration working against Bortles is one of philosophy. The main players in Jacksonville's receiving corps are all sort of built in the same mold: tall, physical receivers who can go to the back shoulder and win a 50-50 ball but have issues separating in the passing game.
One thing I noticed in the games that I reviewed was that Jacksonville's passing concepts tend to work extremely deep on the field. As a result, defenses played to those tendencies: Rarely did opposing teams worry about the short middle of the field. This kind of picture popped up on the all-22 quite often:
I'm not an NFL offensive coordinator like Jacksonville's Jedd Fisch, so I'm going to give him enough credit to believe that there is some method to the madness, but it sure seems to me like a great way to help your struggling rookie quarterback would be to give him some simple reads to build confidence.
The Jaguars have Ace Sanders, the type of receiver that works best with Fisch's limited screen and underneath concepts, back from suspension. But Sanders isn't very talented. When Bortles runs the read-option and linebackers bite on the play-fakes, the Jaguars are actually able to hit on some post routes. Otherwise, they practically ignore the entire middle of the field right now.
When you combine these two problems, you create a self-sustaining cycle: most of Jacksonville's routes take a while to get open, but Jacksonville's line can't give Bortles enough time to hit them. Thus, Bortles can either hurry the throw, or he can eat sacks. I think the Jaguars need to run some more shallow drive and dig concepts to give Bortles a better option when he's under duress.
2) Bortles Himself
There are a lot of issues with Bortles, so I'm not going to cover all of them in depth. His mechanics, as head coach Gus Bradley alluded to in the above tweet, have been inconsistent. He's thrown without fully resetting at times, and some of the balls he's let go have been howlers because of this. I've also seen him predetermine some of his reads, which has led to some ugly interceptions.
But one thing that will have to improve for Bortles is the decision-making, because he still makes some baffling reads. Here's a first-quarter throw off play-action in Week 9 against the Bengals.
Bortles completely locks on to Allen Robinson despite the fact that he is not in the same zip code as the word "open." If we take a closer look from a different viewpoint, we see that there's an underneath option that could hit for quite a few yards that Bortles completely ignores:
This is not uncommon with Bortles, and there are a lot of more egregious reads I could have picked to post here. I chose this one because we had a clear case of Bortles not only making a risky read, but also eschewing an open one lower in his progressions.
Another issue Bortles has had is dealing with blitzes. Quarterbacks have to be able to understand when they need to throw to the hot read in today's NFL, or else ... well, you wind up with this play from the Week 10 game against the Cowboys in London.
The Cowboys set up a zone blitz for Bortles, sending cornerback Brandon Carr (triangle) from the outside and dropping a linebacker and defensive lineman.
Despite Carr's man (circled) coming wide open, Bortles never identifies the blitz coming. Never makes an adjustment. Never sees the sack until it's too late.
3) Playing with Fear
What we saw in Week 12 trumped all that. The Colts blitzed Bortles routinely and hit him up and down the field. By the end of the game, we saw plays like this LaRon Landry sack in the fourth quarter:
It's not necessarily that the blitz landed, or that the result of the play was bad even though the Jaguars blocked it pretty well. It's that Bortles didn't stare down his options as the heat was coming. Instead, he began to react to the pressure:
His head is no longer craned to read, at this point he's simply reacting to the rusher and hoping to spin out of it and make the spectacular, rather than getting rid of the ball before taking the hit.
That's what concerns me more than anything else: over the past few games, Bortles has begun to anticipate the pressure and react based on that rather than his reads. If there's one sure-fire way to flame out as an NFL quarterback, it's the inability to stand in and take a shot as the pocket unwinds around you.
After seeing what the Colts did to the Jaguars on Sunday, expect opposing defenses to pick up on the tactic of blitzing Bortles. If they can make him break like Indianapolis did, the game is already over.
So look, Bortles is not Blaine Gabbert—the physical tools and arm strength that Bortles possesses are the kinds of attributes that Gabbert didn't actually have.
At the same time, what is the best course of action for the Jaguars here? They can't keep stubbornly letting Bortles run his head into blitzes while receivers run seam routes. He learns nothing from it, and the Jaguars can't cover it up with screens to non-elusive players and swing passes out of the backfield.
Bortles may be the most talented player on this offense, but as a collective whole, his deficiencies and Jacksonville's personnel and scheme issues feed off of each other to create an abysmal offense that can't be overlooked anymore. Something has to give, whether it's from Bortles, Fisch or the offensive line.
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