Jacksonville Jaguars coach Gus Bradley hedging a bit on Blake Bortles
By Phil Watson
After Blake Bortles lit up the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in his preseason debut Friday night, Jacksonville Jaguars coach Gus Bradley wasn’t quite as ready to commit to his plan at quarterback.
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Bortles was 7-for-11 for 117 yards with the Jaguars’ second unit, a passing line that included three drops by his receivers.
He also scrambled once for seven yards.
Bradley’s plan for this season was that veteran Chad Henne was the No. 1 quarterback and that Bortles—the No. 3 overall pick in May’s draft—might not see the field at all in 2014.
Henne was penciled in to do all the work with the No. 1 offense until the final preseason game, but Bradley sounded less sure about that after Friday’s performances.
"“We’ll keep evaluating it,” Bradley told the Jacksonville Times-Union. “We’ll see how it progresses—we’ll see how the fourth game goes. It could happen earlier, depending on how things go.”"
Henne was 4-for-7 for 30 yards, playing the first three offensive series. The offense gained 19 yards on 17 snaps with Henne under center.
Bortles, however, was asking fans to slow their roll just a bit after the offense rolled up 144 yards in his 22 snaps.
"“I thought it was all right,” Bortles said. “It’s a process and it’s not going to happen overnight so there were some good reads and some bad reads, some good footwork and some bad footwork. It’s stuff I’ll continue to work on.”"
Bortles led UCF to its first-ever BCS bowl as a junior in 2013, a 52-42 win over Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl. He threw for 3,581 yards and 25 touchdowns with nine interceptions last season while leading the Knights to the first-ever American Athletic Conference championship.
Henne threw for 3,241 yards with 13 touchdowns and 14 picks last season, taking over the starting job from former first-round pick Blaine Gabbert for the final 13 games.