Talking About an Improving Blaine Gabbert
By Luke Sims
Gabbert this, Gabbert that. If you’re a Jags fan it is becoming near impossible to avoid talking about the man under center. He can make a great throw then sack himself. He can hand the ball off to the running back and then hand it off some more. Sometimes when talking about Gabbert we celebrate mediocrity simply because mediocrity is actually an improvement over his play last year.
But if you are Offensive Coordinator Bob Bratkowski, you’re seeing a player that is more improved than any other since April.
"I would say probably to this point at least with the practices that we’ve been through with the scrimmage Blaine is the most improved player that I see out here on offense."
Is this a good thing? Yes, yes it is. Gabbert was a major blight for the offense last season. But what does it say about everyone else? Why are Laurent Robinson, Cecil Shorts, or Eben Britton those most improved players? Why aren’t they more improved than Gabbert – who some describe as moderately/imperceptibly improved?
Hearing about a player improving is good. Coaches do tend to talk about it so much that often times you just end up tuning out coach-speak. But when a coach makes a comparative statement about the most improved then you have to start to wonder what is going on with the other players.
I would argue that the Jaguars receiving corps was the bigger problem last season than Blaine Gabbert. The guys just could not catch a ball (Bratkowski said there were way too many drops during his press conference and that the team is behind where it should be) and made Gabbert look worse than he was. If there had been an Andre Johnson in the mix, I think the season (and Gabbert’s completion percentage) would have been drastically different.
So, when we’re measuring our dear Blaine, we really need to take a hard look at how everyone else is doing. Sure, Jennings could be MJD-Light and that’s a good thing, but without receivers can Jennings even be remotely what MJD was against 8-9 in the box?
The Jags still have issues on offene, they aren’t going away with Blaine’s improvement.
– Luke N. Sims
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