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The Jaguars play a home playoff game for the first time since the 1999 season Sunday. Sam Kouvaris and Cole Pepper discuss the game and what they expect to happen as Jacksonville hosts the postseason.
Jaguars ready for playoffs, Bills
Are you guys watching Bortles? Do you really think he’s “learning” slowly? That’s your analysis of him Cole?
Something is wrong with him.
He’s locking in on one receiver, then throwing the ball like a robot on valium.
He’s not pump faking or looking anyone off. He’s not sliding and waiting for guys to get open. His pocket presence seems to be gone. He seems frozen, asleep almost, even when he’s throwing a completion.
Something is just not right w him. Very hard to understand it.
He is a tough guy, Sam. Physically. But I think that while he looks a lot tougher than Blair to the eye, in fact, he’s taken too many hits, and it has manifested into this weird qb play. He is anything but mentally tough. He has to go into a zombie like state just to play the position, it seems at times.
I have been a Bortles supporter, from the beginning. He played so well for a rookie, stepping in, and when you look at his size, his speed, his intelligence…it’s easy to see his potential and see the future Benburger, II, now with extreme mobility and youth. But his mental game is fragile. He’s not disinterested, or slow on the uptake. He’s overwhelmed with a fear, like Blair, of getting cracked. He has managed to make it look like stoic toughness, but I have seen enough. This sort of thing is worse than a physical injury. This is never going away. He’s set up to fail…and that will only make his mental issue worse.
This will be the furthest he ever goes in the NFL, and this will be his last couple games for the Jaguars.
He’s fighting through a mental weakness that has taken over his game. This is why he seems so inconsistent. This is why he falls apart when even more pressure comes on in the end of games. Almost out of nowhere, he does the inexcusable and unexplainable.
I have come full circle twice now. I figured, hell, he’s doing fine again…even playing great during that little quality run this season. But truth is, during that record QB run, he still didn’t look right. He was going through motions, making some good throws…but often not the right throw, or the most open throw. It was like he made up his mind, threw it there, and it worked.
New prediction. Bortles implodes tomorrow. Either costs us the game, or almost. If the defense bails him out, he’ll crumble in the next game.