Expect Blake Bortles To Go Long Against Steelers
By Luke Sims
One of the biggest criticisms of rookie Blake Bortles’ first career start was that the quarterback wasn’t taking shots down field like fans had anticipated after his incredibly aggressive half against the Indianapolis Colts in his professional debut. he finished the game against the San Diego Chargers with an impressive 29 of 37 passes complete for 253 yards, a touchdown, and two interceptions. He had some nice throws and made some good plays, but they weren’t the type of deep shots we all craved.
Fortunately, it seems that the deep shots may be coming back!
Per John Oehser on the team’s website:
"Rookie quarterback Blake Bortlessaid while there are plays in the game plan designed to throw downfield this week it hasn’t been an emphasis early in the week. Bortles completed 29 of 37 passes for 253 yards and a touchdown with two interceptions in his first NFL start Sunday, but didn’t throw downfield as much as he had in previous appearances. “We definitely have some stuff in, like we do every week, trying to move the ball downfield,” Bortles said. “There were opportunities there I missed. There were different examples of things you could see and you could learn from of where I should have gone with the ball"
While Bortles notes that the deep plays are in the game plan every week, the quarterback was just entering his first start against the Chargers. From all accounts the Jaguars limited the game plan and kept it a bit more vanilla for Bortles’ first start.
Hopefully they will open things up a bit more. Obviously Bortles wasn’t alluding to anything specifically, but the Jags should be able to expand the field as he grows into the playbook more.
It will also help to have receiver Ace Sanders back as a reliable target who will force the defense to not solely focus on deep threat Allen Hurns as the play making receiver. Sanders will be able to complement Hurns and Allen Robinson well for Blake Bortles to take more chances with all of his receivers and play to their unique strengths.
Expect Blake Bortles to go long against the Steelers.