Over my next few articles, I’m going to be covering the biggest positives (touchdowns) and negatives (turnovers) from the young QBs in 2014. This article will cover Blake Bortles’s 17 interceptions in 2014, plus the eight times he put the ball on the ground. 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 on the individual plays themselves. You should note that while the section covering each individual play includes the fumbles, the charting data does not.
Here are the articles so far:
One of the first things I charted for each interception was blame. I assigned three categories, which should be self-explanatory:
Blame
| QB’s Fault | 12 |
| Partially QB’s fault | 4 |
| Not QB’s fault | 1 |
The majority of Bortles’ interceptions last year were totally on him. As you’ll see later, many of those were because he forced throws to receivers that weren’t open. On many of the plays he allowed the defender to jump the route and pick the ball off. On the one play that wasn’t his fault, he was essentially throwing a Hail Mary.
What caused the interceptions?
Cause
| Bad Decision | 13 |
| Bad Throw | 10 |
| Pressured | 6 |
| Great Defense | 4 |
| Dropped Pass | 0 |
| Tipped By Defense | 2 |
Like I said, Bortles struggled with trying to force passes to targets that weren’t open. On many of those forced throws I also marked him off for a poor throw because, while there was a small window where the receiver could have had a chance, Bortles did not deliver the ball there. He actually wasn’t pressured on all too many of these plays, but when he was he tended to make particularly poor decisions. He actually had none of his receivers drop passes that ended up as interceptions, which is a good indication that he was at fault for most of the poor plays.
What about distance covered? Bortles’ average depth of target on these throws was 15.3 yards. Where on the field was he throwing the ball? Here’s a breakdown of each throw:
Distance Breakdown
| Fewer than 6 Yards | 1 |
| Between 6 and 15 yards | 11 |
| More than 15 yards | 5 |
Location Breakdown
| Deep Left | Deep Middle | Deep Right |
| 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Intermediate Left | Intermediate Middle | Intermediate Right |
| 7 | 1 | 2 |
| Short Left | Short Middle | Short Right |
| 1 | 1 | 0 |
Two-thirds of his interceptions came on intermediate routes, with seven of them going to the intermediate left. Most of those plays were on out-breaking routes. In my opinion, this is a bad sign, because it shows a lack of consistency from Bortles when he’s throwing across his body. To be successful as a QB, you have to be able to throw to anywhere on the field. If Bortles struggles when throwing to his left, defenses can cheat to the right and take advantage of that deficiency. This is something he will need to work on.
What about the time left on the clock? First, a breakdown of potential game situations, followed by a breakdown by quarter:
Situational Breakdown
| Crunch Time | 1 |
| Garbage Time | 4 |
| Desperation | 1 |
Quarter Breakdown
| 1st Quarter | 1 |
| 2nd Quarter | 4 |
| 3rd Quarter | 5 |
| 4th Quarter/Overtime | 7 |
Bortles was not in many close games this past season, and the one time he did throw an interception in crunch time it was on 4th-and-long with fewer than 30 seconds left on the clock. That was also classified as the one desperation interception he threw. Bortles also threw a number of interceptions (4) when down big in the 4th and trying to make a miracle happen. They were still bad throws, but I’ll give him a bit of a break on those. That covers 5 of the 7 4th quarter picks. The trend with interceptions by quarter is somewhat concerning to me, as they increased every subsequent quarter. This could indicate either Bortles wearing down as the game went on or defenses figuring out what the Jaguars were trying to do on offense. It could also mean nothing however, so maybe (probably) I’m reading too much into it.
Now let’s take a look at the interceptions he threw by down:
Down Breakdown
| 1st Down | 5 |
| 2nd Down | 7 |
| 3rd Down | 4 |
| 4th Down | 1 |
The interceptions are pretty well distributed between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down. I can’t pick out a trend here.
What about the kinds of routes he was throwing to?
Route Breakdown
| Vertical | 4 |
| Curl | 4 |
| Crossing | 3 |
| Post | 3 |
| Out | 2 |
| Corner | 1 |
Vertical routes are going to lead to more interceptions than any other type of route, but curls are the concerning one here for me. When a defender intercepts a pass on a curl it’s because they jumped the route and they will then have a full head of steam running the other direction. Those are the types of plays that turn into defensive TDs. Bortles needs to get better on these routes.
Finally, lets take a look at who Bortles was targeting on his interceptions:
Receiver Breakdown
| Cecil Shorts III | 4 |
| Allen Hurns | 3 |
| Allen Robinson | 3 |
| Marquis Lee | 1 |
| Denard Robinson | 1 |
| Nic Jacobs | 1 |
| Clay Harbor | 1 |
| Marcedes Lewis | 1 |
| Toby Gerhart | 1 |
| Tommy Streater | 1 |
Shorts is now gone, and Hurns and Robinson were rookies last year. Hopefully, the two of them and Bortles will progress next year. Other than those three, it’s just a variety of players that ended up being the targets when Bortles threw a pick.
