1. Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jaguars seem ready to give up the ghost on Blake Bortles, benching him for Cody Kessler as a highly disappointing season winds down.
The ill-conceived contract they signed him to last offseason is a bit of a hurdle, but making Bortles a post-June 1 cut would allow a $16.5 million cap hit to be spread over two years. If he signed elsewhere, up to $6.5 million of that would be subject to offset.
So it’s financially viable for the Jaguars to be done with Bortles, and they should be.
If the #Jaguars release Blake Bortles prior to June 1st they’ll take on a $16.5M dead cap hit for 2019, the largest single hit in history (though up to $6.5M of it can be offset should he sign elsewhere).
— Spotrac (@spotrac) November 27, 2018
B. Osweiler, $15.2M, CLE
J. Pierre-Paul, $15M, NYG
R. Seymour, $13.1M, OAK
The Jaguars could trade Bortles to a team with ample cap space, and include a draft pick to sweeten the pot for that acquiring team.
The Houston Texans were able to offload Brock Osweiler to the Cleveland Browns in the same way a couple years ago, so that kind of move has a precedent.
Flacco’s best success with the Ravens came when he was supplemented by a good ground game and a defense with the ability to be dominant. Jacksonville has that type of team, and as Bortles showed last year a quarterback can go along for the ride almost all the way to the Super Bowl.
The Jaguars are sure to draft a quarterback in April. But as one-year stopgap, even if he may have no interest in being a mentor to a rookie that will take his job, Flacco looks like a good fit for a team that’ll have an eye on a big rebound in 2019.