Jacksonville Jaguars pick up 5th-year option on Blake Bortles
By Daniel Lago
After not taking a quarterback in the 2017 NFL Draft, the Jacksonville Jaguars reaffirmed their commitment to Blake Bortles on Monday.
The Jacksonville Jaguars were heavily linked to Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson in days leading up to the 2017 NFL Draft and the link made sense. The Jaguars have acquired enough talent over the last two years to be competitive, but many questioned whether or not Blake Bortles could overcome a tough 2016 campaign and lead the team to more wins.
The Jaguars passed on Watson in favor of Leonard in the first round last Thursday, but many still expected the Jaguars to take a quarterback at some point.
The Jaguars closed out the 7th round of the 2017 NFL Draft on Saturday with the same exact quarterback depth chart they had at the end of the 2016 season.
The front office sent a very straightforward message – they believe in Blake Bortles and he is going to be the starter in 2017.
They doubled down on Monday by exercising the team option for a fifth year of Blake Bortles:
Jaguars picked up QB Blake Bortles' fifth-year option.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 1, 2017
#Jaguars pick up 2018 contract option on QB Blake Bortles. (Guaranteed only for injury)
— Ryan O'Halloran (@ryanohalloran) May 1, 2017
#Jaguars have picked up quarterback Blake Bortles' fifth-year option.
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) May 1, 2017
Full details ➡ https://t.co/qdsc9SKHeC pic.twitter.com/iDiRKo6Smc
Tom Coughlin, the Jacksonville Jaguars new Executive Vice President of Football Operations, released a very clear statement about the move:
"“This is a smart business decision for the team for several reasons, it makes sense for us going forward and it’s good for Blake and for the Jaguars.”"
As Ryan O’Halloran points out, this is a fairly surprising move:
if you're not surprised, your pants are on fire.
— Ryan O'Halloran (@ryanohalloran) May 1, 2017
Overall, the move makes sense, but the timing of it is curious. The Jaguars could have picked up the option on Bortles before the draft, but they appear to have wanted to wait until after the draft. To me that means they liked a few of the signal callers that were available, so they wanted to give themselves some flexibility in case a guy like Watson fell to the second round.
That being said, I don’t think this move is indicative of much other than Bortles will be the guy this year. The option only guarantees the money in 2018 for injury, so they could still potentially move on from Bortles if he is a trainwreck again.
Still, if you had told me that Bortles would earn a fifth year after going 11-34 in his first three years, I would have called you crazy.