Blake Bortles was the second most aggressive QB in 2016

Blake Bortles had significantly less success throwing the ball deep in 2016, but it wasn’t for a lack of aggressiveness.

The long list of disappointments from the Jacksonville Jaguars nightmare 2016 season starts with the regression of quarterback Blake Bortles. While some analysts tried to tarnish his growth in 2015 as garbage-time production, Bortles showed a lot of promising progress in his second year.

That progress was all but negated in 2016 as Bortles failed to become the type of passer the Jaguars needed to overcome historically bad coaching.

There are a lot of reasons why Bortles failed to entrench himself as a franchise quarterback this season – awful coaching, a terrible running game, untimely drops from his receivers – but it really all boils down to the breakdown in his mechanics and his lack of advancement mentally as reader of defenses. The most redeeming trait from his 2015 campaign (his willingness to throw the ball deep and make plays) was actually a detriment in 2016.

Matt Harmon recently looked at the “Next-Gen” stats of all the quarterbacks in 2016, and he ranked Bortles as the second most aggressive quarterback in the NFL behind only Cam Newton. Harmon defines aggressiveness as percentage of throws into tight windows:

"More from Jacksonville Jaguars NewsJacksonville Jaguars should welcome Derrick Henry into the kingdomJaguars Rumors: Trent Baalke seems to be getting respect nowJaguars News: This division rival might be making a big moveFormer Jacksonville Jaguars S Johnathan Cyprien: “New Profession, Same Standards”Jacksonville Jaguars TE Evan Engram officially gets the franchise tag: 3 takeaways2) Blake Bortles, Jacksonville Jaguars (24.4 percent of his passes)Much like Cam Newton, Blake Bortles took one of the sharpest declines of any player from 2015 to 2016 and threw 24.4 percent of his passes into tight coverage this year. Bortles crashed down to earth in his third season by throwing just 23 touchdowns after dropping 35 into the end zone last year. In a similar fashion to the Panthers offense, the Jaguars scoring attack doesn’t offer their quarterback many high-percentage passes for easy completions. While Bortles and receivers like Allen Robinson and Allen Hurns appeared to be on the complete positive side of variance on those plays in 2015, they thoroughly tilted to the other side of the scale this year. There’s no better example of that regression than on their deep passes. Bortles attempted 37 percent of his passes that traveled more than 20 yards in the air into tight coverage (eighth-most) but ranked just 27th in his completion rate on those throws.Most of all, Bortles’ coming in with the second-highest percentage of passes thrown into tight windows represents a failure on his part to read defenses and progress in the mental side of the game. Consistently forcing passes when they just aren’t there presented a “live by the sword, die by the sword” proposition for the Jaguars quarterback, which played out on both ends of the spectrum in his last two seasons. He threw six interceptions on his attempts in tight coverage this year, which was tied for third-most. Bortles will almost certainly face competition for his starting job this offseason, and he is no lock to retain it if he can’t progress past these issues."

The percentage of throws into tight windows is really a culmination of two variables – Blake’s willingness to force the ball and his inability to go through all his reads and find the open receiver. The first variable can be a net positive if used judiciously, but he has to get better at reading defenses and finding the open receiver for easy completions. If not, his aggressiveness will never be anything more than a frustration.