Why Jaguars Fans Should be Furious

Auctions have been around for quite some time, and when going into an auction, there are things that smart people do, and things that dumb people do. Take for example 2 art collectors going into an auction for a painting. The painting isn’t a relic by any means, but it is a beautiful work of art and fills a need in the galleries of both collectors. In other words, both would prefer to have the painting, but could pretty easily live without it if the price gets too high. So the bidding starts at 1 million dollars, and the first collector is sitting there patiently waiting. He doesn’t want to make the first move, and wants to see how other people in the room value the painting before he jumps into the auction. He made up his mind going into it that the highest he would go for this nice but not crucial piece was 2 million dollars. After a few seconds of waiting however, the second collector stands up and shouts with confidence, “18 Million Dollars!” The first art collector’s jaw drops in absolute shock at what he has just witnessed, looking around at the other baffled faces in the room. After a few seconds of no more bids, the auctioneer says, “sold,” and the auction is officially over. The auctioneer who, “won,” the painting grossly overpaid, and did so when there was no other competition for the painting. Even if he was willing to spend 18 million dollars, the way he went about it was absolutely moronic to say the least. Everyone in that auction room knew it, and all of you reading this know that this would be a horrendous move to make.

So why the hell am I talking about art in a football blog you ask? The reason for that is because this is exactly what David Caldwell, the general manager of the Jaguars, did when he signed Blake Bortles to his new deal. Free agency hadn’t even started, and instead of letting Bortles test the market a bit before giving him exactly what he wants in a contract extension, Caldwell chose not to negotiate at all. Instead, Caldwell gave Bortles a deal worth a ridiculous 18 million dollars a year! You can talk about how the salary cap rises every year and all that jazz until you are blue in the face, but I don’t see how anyone can talk themselves into thinking that this was a good signing. Even the most irrational Blake Bortles fan in the entire world would have to agree that signing him to this extension when no one else was even bidding yet was an incredibly stupid move by the Jaguars’ front office. To see how this should have been handled, all we have to do is look north to the Minnesota Vikings, a stable, and incredibly well run organization. Their quarterback Case Keenum had by far the best season of his career this year, and even led them to a Championship Game Appearance, just like Bortles did. While the Vikings knew that Keenum was a solid quarterback and helped them win a ton of games this season, they also knew that they could also live without him. That is why they announced the other day that they weren’t going to franchise tag Keenum and would instead let him test the market. This is not to say that they aren’t going to resign Case, but they are going to let him see what he’s worth on the open market and hope that they get him on a more team friendly deal as a result.

As anyone who has read me knows, I am a huge Case Keenum supporter, and even wrote a massive article on him that you can read here The Rise of Case Keenum. But even as a big Keenum fan, I can knowledge that forcing him to negotiate instead of simply giving him what he wants is a great move by the Vikings. Even though I think that the Vikings would be making a huge mistake not resigning him due to the fact that he is a good quarterback, trying to get him to sign a team friendly deal is very important from a roster construction standpoint. Simply put, if you sign him to a mega deal, then you aren’t going to be able to surround him with as much talent to help him succeed. That is why you let him test the market and hopefully, he won’t get any offers big enough to leave. Something you have to remember when looking at quarterbacks in free agency is that they are human beings with families and lives outside of football. I’m sure Case would love to stay in Minnesota next year, and he would accept a contract from Minnesota for say 2 million dollars less than a contract from a dumpster fire organization like the Jets or Browns. Even if let’s say the Browns came in with a Godfather Type Offer that Keenum couldn’t refuse, then the Vikings would be just fine. They would find another quarterback to start for them in 2018, and would still have their loaded roster to elevate that quarterback. Although it wouldn’t be ideal to say the least, they would still be able to move on with another guy knowing that they didn’t overpay for Keenum.

We saw this exact situation unfold a couple of years ago with Brock Osweiler. With the departure of Peyton Manning and Brock hitting free agency, general manager John Elway decided to let Brock test the waters before offering him an extension. To everyone’s surprise however, the Texans offered Brock a mega deal, and Brock of course decided to accept. I said at the time that the deal was too much, and it turned out to be a disaster of epic proportions. Although the Texans would make the playoffs behind their elite defense, their offense sputtered to say the least with Brock at the helm. He was absolutely brutal on the Texans, even to the point where elite receiver Deandre Hopkins was rendered almost useless due to the fact that Brock was unable to deliver the ball on target. Solely to get rid of his horrible contract, the Texans sent him and a high draft pick to the Browns just the next offseason! So to recap, the Texans overpaid Brock, realized they overpaid, and had to surrender a valuable asset to rid them of his salary cap burden. I bet the Texans wish that they talked to me before signing Brock in that fateful 2016 offseason. Although things have definitely not gone well in the quarterback department since Brock left Denver, including Lynch who seems like a bust at this point, at least Elway passed on overpaying a guy who he would end up signing for the veterans minimum. So at the end of the day, the decision not to pay Brock is why Denver has a second round pick this year, and the Texans don’t.

Up to this point, I feel like I have been very nice to Bortles. Hell, the only thing that I’ve said bad about him is that he isn’t an elite quarterback. That however all changes right now so look away Bortles fans. Blake Bortles may be the single most overrated player in the NFL. The reason for this is due to the fact that he was taken 3rd overall. Him going 3rd overall was the result of a team desperate for a quarterback holding the number 3 overall pick, nothing more and nothing less. At the time, everyone questioned the pick, and the Jaguars seemingly got unanimously ripped for it. Take for example this article from Bleacher Report’s Michael Schottey, who gave the Bortles pick a grade of C, “Bortles is raw—really raw. Teams are hoping that he’s the guy he was at his pro day, but the NFL isn’t played in shorts and shirts without a pass rush. If he’s the guy that he was at Central Florida, instead, he might need a year (or two) before he’s ready for the speed, tenacity and complexity of Sunday afternoons.” Even though the pick was questionable to say the least however, it doesn’t matter in terms of the opinion of the masses. Blake was the top quarterback drafted, so people who didn’t live and breathe NFL Football just assumed that he was good simply because he was drafted first. So Blake went into his rookie season given the benefit of the doubt, when he definitely shouldn’t have had it.

Unfortunately for Jaguars Fans however, Blake’s first 3 years in the league weren’t pretty to say the least. He threw only 69 touchdowns to 51 interceptions, thats over 1 pick a game for those of you keeping track, completed just over 58% of his passes (not great), and led the Jaguars to an awful 11 and 34 record. While their the blame for the team’s horrible play can’t solely be placed on the shoulders of Bortles, he seemed to be responsible for at least a large part of it. Bortles was constantly panicking under pressure, throwing just bad interceptions on a consistent basis. Averaging over 1 interception a game is absolutely laughable at the NFL level, no matter who your supporting cast is. Taking care of the football is one of the most important parts of winning football games, and Blake proved that he was simply incapable of doing that early in his career. So after an awful first three years in the league, it seemed like Bortles’ time as a starting quarterback in the NFL was coming to a close. I remember hearing plenty of Jaguars Fans calling for him to be benched this offseason, and honestly, I thought that they might be onto something. Bortles had proven to be a liability on the field to say the least, and it seemed like it was time for the Jaguars to just cut their losses and move on.

Fortunately for Bortles however, 2017 went pretty much as well as it possibly could have. The Jaguars decided to keep him as the starter, and surrounded him with a ridiculous amount of talent. The Jaguars were clearly a defensively minded team, with a truly elite defense behind Jaylen Ramsey, and all Blake had to do was not screw things up. They had a solid offensive line, a great rookie running back in Leonard Fournette, and a speedy receiving corps. For those of you who say that his receivers lacked talent, this might be true, but you have to keep in mind what they were being asked to do. Due to the fact that the Jaguars’ running game was so dominant and they were content to control the clock and win with their defense, the Jaguars’ pass catchers saw mostly single coverage. The opposing defenses were consistently playing the run, and it showed especially when they ran play action, and receivers were running wide open down the field because the defense was cheating up so much. Due to the fact that they were mostly seeing single coverage across the board, all the receivers had to do was run gos, slants, outs, drags and other easy routes to beat single coverage. It doesn’t take an incredibly talented receiver to create separation while running these simple routes, and all you really have to do to succeed in this role is be fast. That is exactly what the Jaguars had at receiver, and that is why their receivers seemed to be constantly running wide open down the field. Blake was able to hit these wide open receivers, and put together a pretty solid regular season from a statistical standpoint. He was even able to limit himself to only 13 interceptions, by far the lowest total of his career!

Due to Blake being handed this Ferrari of a team and not managing to completely drive it off a cliff, the Jaguars were able to sneak into the playoffs. Their first game was against a Buffalo Bills Team who clearly weren’t good enough to be in the playoffs. For christ’s sake, they benched their quarterback midway through the season for a guy who threw 5 picks in the FIRST HALF OF THE GAME! Due to the fact that this was such a layup of a matchup, you would expect the Jaguars to win in blowout fashion. The defense held up their end of the bargain, and held the Bills to only 3 points. Blake and the offense however managed to score only 10 points, even though they were given possession after possession due to the fact that the Bills’ Offense were also horrible and couldn’t stay on the field. Anyone who was unfortunate enough to spend an afternoon watching this game knows how brutal it was to watch, and that was largely due to the complete incompetence of Bortles. The hilarious thing looking back on this game was the fact that the play by play announcers were trying to make excuses for the fact that he was consistently missing receivers who were running wide open down the field. The announcers were constantly saying that the wind was the reason why he couldn’t complete a 10 yard out to save his life. The thing you have to realize is however that we are talking about a sunny day in Jacksonville! The winds were only 3 miles an hour for crying out loud! If Blake Bortles was unable to throw a football in a LIGHT BREEZE, then it seems like he isn’t a very good quarterback. Regardless, the Jaguars won the game and I had to listen for a week to people talking about how great Bortles is.

The Jaguars would then travel on the road to Pittsburgh to play a very good Steelers Team. Fortunately for Bortles however, the Steelers were only very good on the offensive side of the ball. The Steelers were an absolute mess defensively ever since they lost their all pro middle linebacker Ryan Shazier. From the fist snap it became apparent that the Steelers looked flat to say the least, and the Jaguars took advantage. The Jaguars were up 21 to nothing early in the second quarter behind some amazing play from Leonard Fournette and Blake Bortles managing to hit wide open receivers. At that point however, the Steelers woke up and came storming back. What ensued was one of the more memorable and entertaining games of the season, and the Jaguars were able to get the win in an absolute thriller. Even though the Jaguars Offense scored a ridiculous 45 points, Blake’s stat line looks pedestrian to say the least. He completed just 53% of his passes for 214 yards and a touchdown. The Steelers were begging the Jaguars to throw the ball the entire game, single covering their receivers and playing 1 or even no safeties over the top for most of the game, and Blake still barely completed 50% of his throws. You also have to keep in mind that this game was against the horrible Steelers Defense who were carried by their amazing offense all season. The one and only thing that Blake managed to do in this game was not throw a costly interception, and I do give him credit for that. Besides that however, there wasn’t much that impressed me in terms of this performance.

So the unthinkable had happened and the Jaguars were actually playing in the AFC Championship! As a Patriots Fan, I was laughing at the possibility of playing the Jaguars for a chance to go to the Super Bowl. Although our defense was shaky to say the least, we still had Tom Brady, and I felt very confident about a potential late game duel between Bortles and Brady. Unfortunately for me and all the Patriots fans out there however, this game wasn’t the walkthrough that we anticipated. This was mainly due to the fact that our defense proved to be worse than I had anticipated, and I was pretty damn low on them. Watching them in the first half of this game was absolutely brutal to the point that I knew the Jaguars were going to pick up every single first down. While the Patriots did manage to effectively slow down the running game, they did so at the expense of letting the Jaguars receivers run wide open down the field throughout the entire game. Bortles was throwing to receivers who were so open that it was like they were being covered by air, and to his credit he made most of the throws. He was also helped due to the fact that the Patriots were refusing to adjust and putting absolutely zero pressure on him. This all changed late in the game however when the Patriots Defense decided to play well for a change. Bortles struggled late in the game, unable to keep the ball away from Brady. This is something that led to disastrous results for the Jags, as Brady pulled off the comeback and sent Blake and the Jaguars home in heartbreaking fashion. So to recap, he was good when he was throwing to wide open receivers, and bad when he was forced to make tight, pressure throws late.

So the Jaguars ended their season a couple of plays away from being in the Super Bowl. This is definitely an impressive accomplishment, but it gets a little less impressive if you dig a little bit deeper. First of all, the Jaguars finished in last in their division in 2016, so they were playing a last place schedule this season. This meant games against the last place teams in the 3 other AFC Divisions. There was also the fact that their division was brutal this season with Watson and Luck unable to play. So basically, the Jaguars played 7 of their 16 regular season games against completely inferior opponents. Then their playoff run consisted of a close win against a team that shouldn’t have been there, a near 4th quarter collapse against a team with no defense that didn’t show up until midway through the 2nd quarter, and an epic 4th quarter collapse against another team with a horrible defense. Yes, they made it to the AFC Championship Game and no one can ever take that away from them, but 2017 was an obvious down year for the AFC. In 2018 however, things get a lot more difficult for the Jaguars. They will now be playing a first place schedule that will get them games against the Patriots, Steelers, and Chiefs instead of the cupcakes they played last season. There is also the fact that the other quarterbacks in their division will be Luck, Watson, and an improved Marcus Mariota with quarterback guru Matt LaFleur in the fold. The bottom line is that the Jaguars’ road to the Super Bowl was as easy as it is going to get in 2017, and things are going to be immensely more difficult for them in the future.

So now that we’ve looked at Bortles’ meh career so far, it is obvious that he is not an 18 million a year quarterback by any stretch of the imagination. Here is how I envision the next 3 years going for the Jaguars. It is going to be tough for them as they aren’t going to be able to do much to improve their roster. Even though they still have some cap space this season, they still won’t be able to bring in any major talent to move the needle. This is due to the fact that a lot of their talent right now is still on their rookie deals. Once guys like Ramsey, Bouye, and Jack are ready to hit free agency, the Jaguars are going to have to pay them in a big way. We saw the exact same thing happen with the Seahawks. Things were going great when everyone was playing on their rookie deals, but once everyone got their new contracts, management had to make cuts at other positions to create enough cap room for their stars. That is why the Seattle Championship Window has seemed to abruptly slam shut. It all comes down to money, and them not being able to fill out a talented 53 man roster due to the fact that they are paying a lot of money to a few people. This includes quarterback Russell Wilson, a guy who is in a different stratosphere than Bortles in terms of quarterback ability and is barely making more money than him the next 2 years! The bottom line here is that while the Jaguars have a ton of talent right now, they are going to have trouble keeping it while also filling out the rest of the roster.

Seattle had an amazing 3 or so year run before this became an issue, and it was one hell of a ride to say the least. They won a Super Bowl and it really should have been 2 if it wasn’t for that fateful call on the goal line against my Patriots. The unfortunate thing about the Jaguars however is that I believe it will only be a one year run for them, and that is because of that Bortles contract. Standing pat in a league where everyone else is improving is an absolute death sentence, and that is exactly what the Jaguars are going to be forced to do. In the coming seasons however, they won’t just have to stand pat, but actually make cuts in terms of the talent on their roster. That is why it is so difficult to sustain success in the salary cap era of the NFL. In a way you are actually punished for having young talented players. Every cent is so precious when it comes to cap space, and that is why spending 18 million a year on an average at best quarterback is such a horrible move. In the salary cap era, there have been 2 types of teams to win championships. The first type is with a truly elite quarterback surrounded by a good roster. For example, you have the championships won by Brady, Brees, Rodgers, and Manning where elite quarterback play led them to a title even though they were paying a bit extra for it. The second type is with an average, cheap quarterback surrounded by an elite roster. For example, you have the Patriots with a young Brady, the Ravens with Flacco, and the Eagles with Foles this year. What we haven’t seen however is a team with an average quarterback being paid like he’s elite. This is the model that the Ravens attempted to use, and they’ve been in the gutter ever since. Just ask all the Ravens fans out there if they wish that the team let Flacco walk in free agency, no matter how hard it may have been to do emotionally. That contract crippled them for years, and that is exactly what I expect to happen over the duration of the Bortles deal.

So if the Jaguars were so stupid to sign Bortles, what would I have done if I was in their GM’s shoes. First of all, I wouldn’t have resigned Bortles for any amount of money due to the fact that I think there are better options out there. Even if I did want to have him back, I would sit him down and explain that if I gave him that big of a deal, then it would cripple the team and make it impossible to win. If he saw where I was coming from and agreed to take a hometown discount, great. If not, I would’ve waved goodbye to him and taken a look at my other options. My first option to replace Bortles would be the 2018 draft. In my opinion, there are at least 5 quarterbacks who have a chance to go on to be starters in the NFL for a long time. The top of the class consisting of Darnold, Rosen, Mayfield, and Lamar Jackson is intriguing to say the least, and it is starting to look like one of those 4 guys might be available when the Jaguars are on the clock at 29. Lamar Jackson is a guy who I have been a huge fan of since the first time I watched him play at Louisville. He throws absolute lasers, is an incredible athlete compared to everyone else at the quarterback position, and was able to elevate a pretty average roster around him. Looking at mock drafts however, I see people talking about him as if he is trash. I am becoming increasingly more frustrated seeing him go in the second round of mocks. Hell, I have even seen people say that he should be made into a receiver at the NFL level. This is absolute insanity in my opinion, and Jackson should get a shot at being a quarterback in the NFL due to his immense potential and great play he showed at the college level.

For the purposes of this discussion, we are going to assume that Jackson falls to me at 29, as he is in plenty of mock drafts, and I take him without any hesitation. In free agency, I would sign Ryan Fitzpatrick to serve as my backup quarterback and mentor to Jackson. Due to his horrible play in relief of Winston in Tampa last year, it is clear that Fitzpatrick’s days of competing for a starting job are over. That being said, he still has a lot to offer in terms of mentoring a guy like Jackson. Fitzpatrick was never the most talented guy, but he was always the hardest working guy on his team. He watched a ton of film, worked tirelessly to improve, and as I’ve been reminded of seemingly a billion times, went to Harvard. Fitzpatrick would be the perfect guy to mentor Jackson because he would teach him all the tricks of the trade, and act pretty much like a coach in the locker room. The other great thing about Fitzpatrick is the fact that he isn’t a real threat to start, and the coaching staff could commit to Jackson well before the season. Confidence is so huge when developing a young quarterback, and having no one scratching at his heels in training camp would allow Jackson to focus on improving his game instead of fending off the competition. So in my hypothetical version of the Jaguars, we have Lamar Jackson starting with Fitzpatrick as basically a player coach. More importantly, with Jackson on a rookie deal and Fitzpatrick taking close to the veterans minimum like he did last year, we are paying both of them a shit ton less then what they are paying Bortles. This means that we are able to add talent to play with Jackson in the short term, and have more money to help deal with the inevitable big contracts for our young stars when they get off of their rookie deals in a few years.

So now I’m going to stop my rambling and wrap up the border line novel you’ve just read with this. I am going to make one final attempt to get through to even the most biased Jaguars Fan out there. The Blake Bortles signing was a huge mistake. They are going to regress in a huge way this year, and things are going to get worse before they get better. With Bortles signing this massive contract, the Jaguars are shaping up to have the exact same demise as Seattle did with one pretty major difference. The Jaguars aren’t even going to have the 3 or so year run where they were one of the best teams in football. They’ve been horrible with the exception of the 2017 season where they lost in the AFC Championship with an easy schedule and a down conference. That doesn’t constitute a run in my eyes, and it shouldn’t in yours either. As fans, you have to expect more from your team’s front office. One fun season ending in a championship loss shouldn’t be the peak of this team’s run. You guys have an incredibly talented roster right now, and a defense that was able to shut down the greatest quarterback of all time for nearly 3 quarters. I know it’s tough to let go and give up on a guy you drafted 3rd overall just 4 years ago, but the NFL is a tough league. You can’t afford to be emotional if you want to succeed, and that is exactly what this signing came down to, pure emotion. Think of it this way, would you rather go into this season with Jackson and Fitzpatrick as your quarterback room or Bortles. I feel like I’d rather have the exciting, high ceiling Jackson who will also make things easier on Fournette due to the fact that he’s more of a running threat then Blake, and that is before taking into account that the Jackson Fitzpatrick combo is roughly 10 million dollars cheaper, 13 when Fitzpatrick leaves after year 1. Contract negotiations in the NFL are exactly like the art show I talked about in the opening of this piece. Right now the Jaguars are the second collector who, “won,” the auction, and the rest of the league are the other people in the room wondering what the hell just happened, and you Jaguars Fans out there should be absolutely pissed about it.