Blake Bortles: ‘Guys are sick and tired of being below average’

Blake Bortles knows that the Jacksonville Jaguars haven’t been good. In fact, they’ve been downright bad — racking up just 11 wins over the past three years and compiling a negative-317 point differential since 2014. The fourth-year quarterback knows things need to change.

A lot of things.

Bortles was asked if the team’s mentality had changed this offseason and his answer was... interesting.

“I don’t know. A little bit. Two years ago, I went out there and last year, I stayed here the whole time,” Bortles said after practice on Wednesday. “I think it’s one of those things where it’s we have Coach Coughlin here, we have Doug Marrone here, we have Nathaniel Hackett, who we all, as an offense, are extremely comfortable and confident with. It just shows that guys are sick and tired of being below average and not being successful when we feel as though we have the ability to be a good team. We haven’t been. It’s time to make a change. It’s not going to happen overnight. You have to go do something about it.”

Why is this interesting? Because the two things Bortles addressed — his offseason routine and the new coaching staff in place — are direct results of the previous coaching staff’s failures.

If you’ll remember, it was Greg Olson who disagreed with Bortles on how he should spend his offseason. Olson thought he should stay in Jacksonville and Bortles (everyone assumed) going to see Tom House, the same private coach he’d seen before a very productive season in 2015.

And then Bortles touched on the fact that his big three now were Coughlin, Marrone, and Hackett, three coaches who wouldn’t be in the position they’re currently in if the previous staff had done its job.

It’s a little thing, but it’s still interesting to notice nuances in how players (and especially Doug Marrone) are answering the media’s questions.