If there is someone in this state who knows what the young quarterback from this side of the state is going through, it’s the young quarterback from that side of the state.
Like the Bucs’ Jameis Winston, the Jags’ Blake Bortles was a draft pick (third overall).<
Like Winston, he went to a pro team in Florida (Jacksonville).
Like Winston, he played at a college team in Florida (UCF).
Like Winston, he threw seven interceptions in his first four games.
Now, Bortles is in his second season. But there remain similarities. Bortles’ team is 1-3 on the season, trying desperately to get untracked. This weekend, Bortles’ Jags play Winston’s Bucs.
“It’s hard,” Bortles said. “After going through it last year, and even this year, it’s unbelievably hard to be successful as a rookie, seeing things for the first time. You’re seeing things you’ve never seen before, you’re doing things you’ve never done before, so I think it takes a lot of adaptation and time to get used to [it]. I definitely feel and know what he’s going through, and it does get better.”
Bucs’ coach Lovie Smith agrees.
“All young quarterbacks have to go through the same process,” Smith said. “If you are talented, you are going to see improvements each week. Over a year of being an NFL quarterback we do. We see [Bortles] growing. He’s come a long ways. He’s a good football player. We just don’t want him to be at his best. We want him to have some young quarterback struggles this week.”
Bucs’ defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier says Bortles is a much better player this season than last.
“Just watching his tape now and just remembering our first preseason game a year ago, you would expect him to make a jump, but he has come quite far in his second year, which you would expect him to,” Frazier said. “He should just get better and better. He’s a strong-arm quarterback who is pretty accurate with the football. The one thing that kind of stands out is his mobility. He’s more mobile than [most] probably thought. We have to have a handle on that when we play him on Sunday. He has all the tools to be a very good quarterback in our league for a long time. Hopefully we can contain him and not let him get going on Sunday.”
Jags’ coach Gus Bradley, a former Bucs’ assistant, sees similarities between Bortles and Winston.
“I can speak for how we handled it,” Bradley said. “We had great faith and have great faith in Blake. I think we knew some of that was going to be part of the learning curve. It’s a different game. It’s a faster game. Some different looks and it requires great decision making in a minimal time period. I know they have great faith in [Winston] and they trust him and they know sometimes these things can happen. The biggest thing is to learn from them and quickly recover from your mistakes and move on. That’s kind of what we went through. We saw the great games and we saw the tough games and the inconsistency. I think it will eventually even out. He’s talented now. He’s talented. You look at some of the throws he makes, but he had close to 300 yards throwing in the Carolina game and [in] the New Orleans game [he had] no picks, good decision making. You see the flashes similar to what we went through.”
Bortles said he understands the temptation to try to do too much.
“It is hard – there’s definitely a balance between being aggressive and being out of control,” Bortles said. “As a quarterback, you want to push the ball downfield, you want to make plays happen, especially when things aren’t going well, your record’s not what you want it to be and stuff like that. You want to be the guy that makes things happen and helps your team to victory. But you have to be smart with it and know and kind of trust that if you take it bit by bit, it’ll add up. Not every play has to be a touchdown. A checkdown can be your best friend at times. And I think being smart with the football and kind of just continuing like that.”
