Tony Boselli puts Chris Simms on blast for being awful at evaluating quarterbacks
By Daniel Lago
Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles has taken plenty of undue flack and Tony Boselli had enough when he heard Chris Simms trashing him.
“Because, you know, that was a subpar quarterback.”
“As long as Bortles is back there, if the ball game is in his hands, he’s going to choke.”
“I’m trying to go out there and win the game. I want to make him look like Blake Bortles”
Blake Bortles has been a national whipping boy since his disappointing 2016 campaign, but it’s been taken to another level in 2017.
Bortles has improved significantly this year, but instead of gaining the respect of his peers he’s been the subject of undeserved insults.
The latest came at the hands of the completely unremarkable former quarterback Chris Simms, who said Bortles was the 70th best quarterback in the NFL.
Simms was on the Dan Le Batard show, discussing the quarterbacks left in the playoffs, and openly discussed guys like Mark Sanchez, Chad Henne, T.J. Yates, Cardale Jones, and Nathan Peterman being better than quarterbacks than Blake Bortles.
Obviously blinded by confirmation bias and presumably some level of jealously since he flamed out of the NFL spectacularly while Bortles just won a playoff game, Simms stayed on the show long enough for Tony Boselli to call in and rip him a new one.
In case you don’t listen to the clip above, Boselli starts his savage rant by saying he appreciates the only cool thing Simms has ever done was almost die on the field (a spleen injury) and have a dad who was good at football.
Woof.
Boselli then continues to, quite logically, tell Simms how idiotic it is to explicitly state Chad Henne, Bortles’ backup, is a better quarterback than Bortles.
The rest of the rant is a terrific listen, and overall it’s clear that everyone is having a bit of fun with the conversation, but it’s encompassing of what has really become a lazy stance on Bortles and his play.
Simms claims to watch film, but he ranks Nathan Peterman – a rookie who threw five interceptions in a half and last week managed to fumble, draw an intentional grounding, and throw an interception on three consecutive plays – ahead of Bortles. That’s objectively wrong and a tell that he’s decided he’s not going to rank Bortles high no matter what.
By every advanced metric (QBR, passer rating, Pro Football Focus, Football Outsiders), Bortles has been around an average quarterback. According to QBR, he was the 12th best quarterback this year!
Simms is wrong, and thankfully we have Big Bo’ around to defend this franchise from people who put having hot takes above being an objective analyst.