Blake Bortles went to the Jaguars with the third overall pick in the 2014 draft. The team originally planned to sit him, but Chad Henne’s poor play sent the rookie into the lineup and he started the rest of the season for the Jaguars. With Bortles at the helm, the Jaguars went just 3-10, but he did not have much of a supporting cast, throwing to mainly rookie WRs with an offensive line that allowed him to be sacked more than any other QB. His stats do not look great, but he showed some promise. This post will look at his “best” (from a results standpoint) plays from 2014, his 11 TD passes.
Over my next few articles, I’m going to be covering the biggest positives (touchdowns) and negatives (turnovers) from the young QBs in 2014. Derek Carr lead off with his 21 passing TDs in 2014. Teddy Bridgewater was next with 14 TDs passes and one rushing TD. Now it’s Bortles’ turn. First, I’m going to cover some charting data I came up with while watching his passing. Then, on page 2 and beyond, there are my thoughts of the individual plays themselves.
Here’s data on the yardage from Bortles’ TDs:
Yardage Breakdown
| Yards | 270 | Average | 24.5 |
| Yards after catch | 88 | Average | 8.0 |
| Yards in Air | 176 | Average | 16.0 |
| Yards in Air+ | 202 | Average | 18.4 |
The difference between “Yards in Air” and “Yards in Air+” is that I give credit for yards in the endzone in “Yards in Air+.” So, if the line of scrimmage is the 2 and he throws a TD pass that’s caught 7 yards into the endzone, the YIA for that play is 2 while the YIA+ is 9.
Bortles averaged 10.4 yards/completion in 2014, but you would expect that to be increased with TDs passes. 24.5 yards/attempt on his TD passes is absurd. It’s not like the Jaguars receivers gained a ton of yards after the catch on these TD passes, although Bortles’ longest TD pass did include a long run after the catch. This shows (and it will also be seen when I break down his throws by route) that Bortles threw many of his TD passes on deep routes. Bortles split the number of TD passes that were caught into the endzone vs. those that were caught outside it pretty evenly, and his YIA+ is fewer than 30 yards greater than his YIA.
This brings me to the next tables, which break his TD passes down by distance and location:
Distance Breakdown
| Fewer than 6 Yards | 3 |
| Between 6 and 15 yards | 1 |
| More than 15 yards | 7 |
Location Breakdown
| Deep Left | Deep Middle | Deep Right |
| 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Intermediate Left | Intermediate Middle | Intermediate Right |
| 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Short Left | Short Middle | Short Right |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
The majority of Bortles’ TD passes were on plays that gained more than 15 yards. Something even more interesting is that he threw zero TDs on short routes (routes that were run within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage). The three TD passes he threw inside the five yard line were all to the back of the endzone. To me this indicates that the Jaguars did not have a very good short passing game, and that their RBs are probably poor receiving options. Instead of throwing short, Bortles spread the ball pretty evenly to all sides of the field on routes of middling distance and also connected on a few deep balls.
Now let’s take a look at the route types he threw to:
Route Breakdown
| Vertical | 5 |
| Slant | 1 |
| Corner | 1 |
| Crossing | 1 |
| Curl | 1 |
| Post | 1 |
| Out | 1 |
Vertical routes (including fades) were the clear favorites for Bortles to go to on his TD passes. He didn’t throw more than one of any other type (although he did throw two TDs to receivers in the corner of the endzone on rollouts, but one is classified as a crossing route and the other was a corner route by my methodology). So, the message would be that if you’re looking to take away scoring opportunities for the Jaguars, try to take away the deep ball.
Speaking of rollouts, I also tracked plays where Bortles was pressured or didn’t have a standard dropback:
Dropback Breakdown
| Nothing Unusual | 7 |
| Rollout | 3 |
| Pressured | 2 |
Note: Doesn’t add up to 11 because he was pressured on one of his rollouts.
Bortles had a mostly clean pocket when he threw TDs. He was only pressured twice, and one of the plays I counted was kind of iffy because the rusher made him climb up the pocket but I don’t think he was ever in danger of being sacked. The Jaguars, like most teams, chose to employ rollouts on the goal line, and passing on the move was considered one of Bortles’ strengths coming in, so I’m a bit surprised only three of his TDs were on rollouts.
Speaking of pressure, how did Bortles do in close moments? Here’s a look at his TD’s in “Crunch Time” (which I define as the game being within 8 points in either direction with less than 5 minutes left in the game) and “Garbage Time” (down 9 points or more with under two minutes left, 16 points or more with under 6 minutes left, or 21 points or in the 4th Quarter) TDs:
Situational Breakdown
| Crunch Time | 0 |
| Garbage Time | 4 |
The Jaguars were not very good, and Bortles didn’t throw all that many TDs with only 11. So, he probably didn’t have all that many opportunities to throw “crunch time” TDs, and he didn’t get any on the year. He did, however, have a lot of chances to throw in garbage time, which led to him having 4 on the season. When you play on a bad team, those kinds of plays are going to happen, so while four is quite a large percentage of his total TD passes, it’s not a big surprise.
With this talk of crunch time and garbage time TDs, let’s look at his TD breakdown by Quarter:
Quarter Breakdown
| 1st Quarter | 1 |
| 2nd Quarter | 3 |
| 3rd Quarter | 2 |
| 4th Quarter/Overtime | 5 |
Down Breakdown
| 1st Down | 6 |
| 2nd Down | 3 |
| 3rd Down | 2 |
| 4th Down | 0 |
Bortles played well in the 4th quarter, although 4 of his 5 TD passes in the quarter came in garbage time. It’ll be interesting to see if that translates over to ability to do it in crunch time when he gets in close games. Other than that, it’s not like he has a huge sample size, so it’s hard to draw conclusions about trends.
On the topic of downs, it’s clear Bortles did his best work when taking chances on first down. Those chances paid off for him on the 6 TD passes he threw on first down.
Receiver Breakdown
| Allen Hurns | 4 |
| Allen Robinson | 2 |
| Cecil Shorts III | 1 |
| Nic Jacobs | 1 |
| Marcedes Lewis | 1 |
| Clay Harbor | 1 |
| Marqise Lee | 1 |
Four of the seven players Bortles threw TD passes to (Hurns, Robinson, Jacobs, and Lee) were rookies last season. To me, that’s a huge positive going forward because it will give Bortles and his targets room to grow together. The only player on this list that will not be back with the Jaguars next year is Cecil Shorts, who was injured for most of 2014. The youth of Bortles’ receiving options potentially helps explain his lack of TD passes on the year. Hopefully for Jaguars fans, both Bortles and his receivers will improve upon their play next season.
