Jaxson De Ville
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- Mar 19, 2019
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With 2,560 current roster spots, the third overall pick in the 2014 draft currently doesn’t have one of them.
Quarterback Blake Bortles remains a free agent after his one-year contract with the Rams expired. His coach in 2019 is surprised by that result.
“I am surprised, just because he’s played a lot of good football in this league,” McVay told reporters on Friday. “You hope for the best. I have not had much dialogue with anybody else about him, but I am surprised that he is not on a team right now.”
The fact that McVay hasn’t talked to others about him suggests that other teams aren’t even doing due diligence on Bortles, who nearly led the Jaguars to the Super Bowl in 2017. The fact that McVay has opted for a trio of backups to Jared Goff who have no NFL experience (John Wolford, Bryce Perkins, Josh Love) isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement.
He has 17,659 career passing yards, 103 touchdowns, 75 interceptions, a completion percentage of 59.3, and a passer rating of 80.6.
The Jaguars moved on from Bortles after five seasons as the full-time starter. Some (like PFT Live co-host Chris Simms) routinely criticized Bortles for being, as Simms put it, “not put on earth to throw a football.”
That sounds harsh (because it is), but the point is that, as Simms sees it, someone early in Bortles’ career looked at the big, strong kid and said, “You should play quarterback.” Even when the Jaguars were thriving, Simms had Bortles at No. 70 among all quarterbacks.
Whether Simms’ assessment is accurate or not, the league at large seems to agree with it. It will be interesting to see whether that changes, especially once quarterbacks start getting injured during the regular season or otherwise not playing well.