Arizona Cardinals liked Blake Bortles

The Jacksonville Jaguars selected former UCF quarterback Blake Bortles with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft which surprised many, so you have to wonder what would have happened if the team would have ultimately decided to go in a different direction.

If Bortles remained on the board, there is a real chance that he may have watched himself fall down the first round and if that were the case he could have drawn interest from the Arizona Cardinals.

Now that the draft is over, teams are not afraid to shed some light on their opinions of the players in this year’s class, and Cardinals general manager Steve Keim admitted to liking Bortles because of his size and athleticism.

“Well, you know, we liked Blake Bortles a lot,” Keim told Adam Schein of SiriusXM Mad Dog Radio.

“We thought, when you looked at his size, his athleticism, his ability to improvise. He doesn’t have quite the arm strength that Ben Roethlisberger had but he has some of the same skill set, naturally with his foot speed and athleticism to get out of the pocket and make plays with his feet, as well as stand tall in the pocket and make some of the throws down the field. And he’s a guy, being a junior coming out, he still had some developing to do as well but we think his upside is pretty big.”

The Cardinals currently have Carson Palmer leading the rising team, but he isn’t getting younger and they will soon need to worry about addressing the quarterback position for their future.

If Bortles would have been available, there is a real chance he could have landed with the Cardinals.

Luckily for him, he won’t have to worry about playing in the NFC West, which features some of the most impressive defenses in the entire league.