Herding Cats: Analyzing the Jacksonville Jaguars Offense vs the New England Patriots
Blake Bortles, Quarterback
Sep 20, 2015; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles (5) points at the line of scrimmage in the second quarter against the Miami Dolphins at EverBank Field. Mandatory Credit: Phil Sears-USA TODAY Sports
Jacksonville faithful are probably still eating toothpaste and sticking plungers in their mouths to get the taste of the Blaine Gabbert out of their mouths, but they just might be on to something with 2014’s first-round pick. The poor kid was sacked 55 times and only threw 11 touchdowns (and 17 interceptions) last year, but so far this season things could be looking up. Bortles had a solid C+ effort against the Dolphins last week, throwing two touchdowns and, more importantly, not turning the football over at all, racking up 273 yards on 18/33 passing.
As he is prone to do, Bill Belichick took stock of the positive attributes Blake Bortles has shown so far on his mid-week conference call, noting, “Bortles creates a lot of problems for you. I felt last week against Miami was another good example of the overall effectiveness of the offense: decision making, no sacks and no turnovers. He’s able to make plays with his feet. He’s able to make plays in critical situations like third down, two-minute and he’s able to make plays when he has a chance to get the ball down the field. We saw a couple of those last week with [Allen] Robinson. He’s done a good job with that.”
Who Can Stop Him?
We’re going to cheat a bit here and say that rather than tag one or two players that’ll be tasked with neutralizing Bortles, at the end of the day, either Belichick’s game plan on defense is going to bamboozle the kid and force him to make mistakes, or Blake is going to figure Bill out and find the holes he needs. Bortles claims the Jags with “face this game the same way we did Carolina and Miami,” but he should know this might be the biggest test the NFL has thrown at him yet.
Jacksonville’s offensive line appears to be on the up-and-up, especially with the progress of now-second-year guard Brandon Linder, who was named to the Pro Football Focus Pro Bowl team (as a reserve, but still, pretty respectable for the 2014 third-rounder). Given the 8 sacks that New England had rushing extra defenders against Buffalo and Tyrod Taylor, a similar scheme could get a young guy that’s used to getting sacked on 10.4% of his dropbacks (!) seeing ghosts. The Pats could also revert to the defensive scheme from the beginning of the Buffalo game here, playing more cover-1 with Devin McCourty as the lone safety if they don’t feel like a lot of downfield bombs are a threat.
Speaking of downfield bombs…
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