How confident do you think the Jacksonville Jaguars are in Blake Bortles and their quarterback position group?
ESPN’s Dan Graziano sees your lukewarm response and raises you with “they’re a bottom 10 situation in the league”. That’s according to his 2018 QB Confidence Index — a ranking not of which quarterbacks are better, but rather how confident he thinks the team is in its quarterbacks.
And he doesn’t think the team is confident in Bortles and the others at all.
24. Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jags gave Blake Bortles an extension early in the offseason, indicating they’d prefer to stick with him and what worked in 2017 than to go out and spend big on someone like Cousins. They didn’t draft a quarterback until the sixth round, and the backup as of now is Cody Kessler.
The Jags are, for the moment, all-in on Bortles. The reason they’re down so low is that (A) the commitment isn’t an overly long-term one and (B) they don’t ask Bortles to do as much as other teams ask their quarterbacks to do. The Jags want to run and run and run some more, and while Bortles has played well in flashes, he hasn’t shown the consistency you need to see to inspire confidence. And if he flops, there isn’t much behind him.
Quite honestly, this is a little low but you can’t argue that the Jaguars are at a “wait-and-see” moment with Bortles. He was given average money in a contract that is structured in a way where the team could cut him loose next offseason and see minimal cap impact.
What do you think? Is the ranking still too low or are the Jaguars ranked right where they should be?