Blake Bortles completed 14 of 26 passes for 214 yards and one touchdown in his team’s 45-42 victory Sunday. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles doesn’t get much respect in the NFL. Texans defensive end Jadeveon Clowney called the 25-year-old passer “trash” in December. A week before that, Seattle Seahawks safety Earl Thomas, called him “subpar.” Tennessee Titans defensive lineman Jurrell Casey called him a choker after his team defeated the Jaguars 34-15 in the regular-season finale.
But Bortles continues to have the last laugh. He completed 14 of 26 passes for 214 yards and one touchdown in his team’s 45-42 victory Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the divisional round, which sent Jacksonville to the AFC championship game for the first time since 1999, putting Bortles among a small group of passers who increased their value in the postseason by having above-average playoff campaigns despite underwhelming regular-season performance. the question is should a team hitch their wagon to such a player long term?
[Case Keenum, Nick Foles and Blake Bortles are still alive. Just like everyone expected.]
Since 2011, the first year under the current collective bargaining agreement, there have been four quarterbacks who were below-average during the regular season according to their passer rating, but managed to be above-average in the playoffs, helping their team win at least one postseason game: Joe Flacco (2011), Tim Tebow (2011), Peyton Manning (2015) and Bortles (2017).
Flacco would win a Super Bowl in 2012 and sign a six-year, $120.6 million contract a year later. Tebow was out of the NFL by then, playing his final season in 2012 as the backup quarterback for the New York Jets. Manning, considered by many to be one of the best passers to ever step on the field, retired after the 2015 season. Bortles’ future, however, is complicated.
The Jaguars picked up Bortles’s fifth-year option at the end of a poor 2016 campaign — worth $19 million and fully guaranteed if he’s on the roster after March 14 — and his solid play in 2017 gives the team three options going forward: try to sign him to an extension, let him play out the year on the option or let him walk and go in a different direction for the 2018 season.
Having him play out 2018 doesn’t make much sense, because if you’re going to make a change, this is the offseason to make it. There will be a decent crop of quarterbacks in free agency and available in the draft, giving Jacksonville a number of good options if it wants to move one. That leaves the Jaguars with an all or nothing proposition for the future.
Unfortunately, committing to Bortles long term is a scary proposition. Solid postseason performance aside, his four-year career has been inconsistent, with just one season, the current one, resulting in above-average performance. And even then it is only slightly above average. According to ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating, Bortles was the 12th most-valuable passer in 2017, his 55.2 QBR implying that his team would be expected to win about 55 percent of time, given that level of performance. That’s also a career high and the first time he hasn’t been in the bottom 10 of that metric.
It is much more likely that Bortles regresses in 2018. Since 2002, the first year the league expanded to 32 teams, there have been eight quarterbacks taken in the first round of the draft that threw at least 2,000 passes during their first four years as a pro while producing a below-average passer rating relative to the league over that span. Just two, Eli Manning and Alex Smith, managed to be above-average passers over the next five years.
You could also argue Bortles’s production under center in 2017 is what you would expect from a team under .500, not one with Jacksonville’s 10-6 regular-season record. For example, the Jaguars’ passing efforts created 2.7 more points per game than expected based on the down, distance and field position of each play, close to what it was in 2014 (3.0 more points per game than expected) when the team went 5-11. The difference? A historically good defense which saved the club a league-high 12.8 points per game.
Long term contracts should be doled out based on what players will provide to a team, not what they’ve already done. So while it’s great Bortles has helped the Jaguars to the AFC title game, he’s unlikely to repeat the feat, given his track record.
Paying top dollar for an inconsistent quarterback having a career year with some postseason success doesn’t make much sense for Jacksonville, and they are better off keeping their options open for next season.
Read more on the NFL:
Titans part ways with head coach Mike Mularkey despite a playoff win
Patriots’ Tom Brady is a freak, and Jaguars’ defense will only make him better
NFL players react with shock to the Stefon Diggs TD that beat the Saints
The Jaguars roasted the Steelers for looking ahead at rematch with the Patriots
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