Blake Bortles is about to enter his fourth NFL season. The No. 3 overall pick in the 2014 draft, Bortles has completed 58.8 percent of his passes at 6.6 yards per attempt. He's thrown 69 touchdowns and 51 interceptions, and has a passer rating of 79.6 in 45 career starts. All of those numbers are below average.
Bortles appeared to have taken a moderate step forward in 2015, but he regressed badly during the 2016 campaign.
| Year | Comp | Att | Comp % | Yds | YPA | TD | INT | Rtg |
| 2014 | 280 | 475 | 58.9% | 2908 | 6.12 | 11 | 17 | 69.5 |
| 2015 | 355 | 606 | 58.6% | 4428 | 7.31 | 35 | 18 | 88.2 |
| 2016 | 368 | 625 | 58.9% | 3905 | 6.25 | 23 | 16 | 78.8 |
Based on his performance, Jaguars coach Doug Marrone -- now the full-time head man after taking over for Gus Bradley on an interim basis last season -- thinks Bortles needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
"We have to go back and build his foundation from the beginning," Marrone said, per the Florida Times-Union. "We told him [in January] we wanted him to make sure his arm was ready to go because there will be an increase in reps, which will help him. I've been with Drew [Brees] in New Orleans and obviously he's a Hall of Fame-type quarterback and that's the way we approached it with him and with the team. You start with the foundation and you look to see how fast they can work through the foundation."
Anytime you're talking about rebuilding the foundation of a fourth-year quarterback, something has probably gone horribly wrong. Bortles has certainly not worked out as the Jaguars expected, and with new faces at both coach (Marrone) and in the front office (former Jags and Giants coach Tom Coughlin), there may not be quite as much motivation to make sure he works out in the future. Bortles' fifth-year option has not yet been picked up, and at this point, it'd be an upset if it was. Barring a surprising turn in his fourth season, it seems likely that the Jaguars will be going back to the quarterback well yet again.
