Greg Olson to Focus on Blake Bortles’s Strengths

Blake Bortles is the key for the Jacksonville Jaguars going forward. We know it. The head coach knows it.

Offensive coordinator Greg Olson just confirmed it.

Sure, it’s nothing to write home about. We all already knew it, after all.

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But over the past few years it has seemed like the Jaguars have simply tried to force game plans on the quarterback rather than focusing on their strengths. So, when Olson says, “Most importantly, we have to make sure what we’re doing offensively is based upon the development and the strengths of Blake Bortles” I perk up and I take note.

If the Denver Broncos could succeed with Tim Tebow at quarterback, tailoring their offense around a woefully deficient quarterback to find some level of success in 2010, then the Jags can certainly find a way to tailor the offense to the strengths of Blake Bortles.

To be clear, I’m not talking about putting training wheels on. We saw what that was like with Blaine Gabbert and Bortles under Jedd Fisch. We know that leads to mediocrity at best.

I’m talking about tailoring a game plan to take advantage of Bortles’s strengths.

The offense was at its best last season when Bortles was allowed to sling the ball around and take shots. He pushed defenses back, opening the running game up and forcing defenses to respect the Jags’ young receivers as legitimate threats.

There were some risks that came associated with that. Leading the league in interceptions was part of that.

That’s a risk that Olson and company need to come to terms with and work on mitigating through training this offseason and through next season. It’s the way Bortles – who is a young quarterback, lest we forget – plays best and it’s the way the Jaguars play best.

Hopefully Olson was able to see that in Bortles and he is willing to #FreeBortles again through better game plans and play calling.

The last thing we want to see next year is a Blake Bortles that still has training wheels on. Let’s see what the young guy can do.

Hopefully he makes some progress this offseason too, because it wasn’t just the play calling that led to some abysmal numbers.