When the Jacksonville Jaguars travel to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a divisional playoff duel on Sunday, the main focus is on one man: Jaguars-Quarterback Blake Bortles. For months goal for mockery in the social networks, Bortles has after a short, impressive high in December again massively dismantled. So why aren’t the Jaguars in Pittsburgh without a chance? The match will be played live on Sunday (19.05) at DAZN!
Bortles’ final stat line in last Sunday’s 10:3 wildcard victory over the Bills was not only curious – it even took on historic dimensions: his 89 rushing yards in one game meant a new franchise record for a Jaguar quarterback, but above all he had more rushing than passing yards: only 87 yards came through the passing game.
In the last 25 years only Michael Vick won a playoff game against the Rams in 2004 (119 rushing, 82 passing yards) with this statistical anomaly. Now, no other player in the field this millennium has electrified the fans in the NFL more than Mike Vick, who seemed to revolutionize the quarterback position with an incredible athleticism and explosiveness – until his other, his shadowy existence came to an end.
Blake Bortles is not necessarily famous for electrifying runs and an athleticism unknown to the position. Instead, the average fan probably knows him best for his role as a (social media) punchline.
From the always ironic “Blake Bortles Facts” twitter account – which comes up with pearls like:”Blake Bortles has never lost to Jon Gruden” – to Jadeveon Clowney and the garbage bin commentary (with spectacular consequences for the Texans star) to the titanium defensive tackle Jurrell Casey, who prophesied Bortles before the start of the playoffs.
The wrestler recently took a closer look at Bortles’ handling of public mockery. While his surroundings, whether it’s fellow players, friends or family, are struggling with it, the quarterback seems to be unhurried by all this. In his words,”If you spend time and thought or gather information about all those who speak badly of you, that is ultimately a waste of time.”
The approach to dealing with voices from outside clearly speaks for Bortles and in a way shows exactly the kind of blinkers that an NFL quarterback needs in his career sooner or later.
At the same time, however, the jokes, albeit now often also a self-propelled one, do not come from nowhere – rather Bortles became a caricature of himself due to too many desolate appearances in the public view. Bortles was in serious danger of losing his starting spot to Chad Henne just in the pre-season.
This picture of Bortles as a loser was suddenly put on ice between Week 13 and Week 15: Bortles did a great job against the Colts, the Seahawks and the Texans. His often so devastating throwing motion looked better at the push of a button, and from 91 passes he attached 65 for 903 yards and seven touchdowns without interception. And this at an average of 9.9 yards per pass, an extremely high value. Against Houston, all three passes, flying over 20 yards, arrived and earned 114 yards of space.
But this was more of an atypical high than a constant ascent. Bortles was followed by cruel appearances against San Francisco and especially at the end of the regular season against Tennessee and at the latest with the game against Buffalo Bortles des Mocks could be sure about his ability as a passer again.
So how do the Jaguars still have a chance of surviving in Pittsburgh?
During the 3-game series in December, one thing was unmistakable: Bortles, who also made progress on the Line of Scrimmage and Pre-Snap, shone out of Play Action. He quickly found his receivers and profited in many ways from the run fakes.
No other team saw the regular season as consistently 8-men-boxes, both Chris Ivory (50.89 percent) and Leonard Fournette (48.51 percent) were concerned. Percentage wise the two of all running backs have to fight with the third and fifth most 8-men-boxes.
Against Buffalo this was unmistakable, both Defenses focused fully on delivering the box. The result was that the linebackers were quickly tempted to attack the Line of Scrimmage. This makes Play Action extremely efficient: Bortles has clear reads, one-on-one coverage in the secondary and rooms for Underneath passes. Again, this became clear against the Bills again and again. The Jaguars also have good route combinations to attack individual areas of the field.
The one-on-one matchups are always available without play action, too little fear of opposing defenses from Jacksonville’s Passing Game. But one elementary aspect must not be forgotten: the Steelers have to do without linebacker Ryan Shazier, who can close gaps quickly with his enormous range. This makes Pittsburgh’s front line more vulnerable to the run, as well as to a well-built play-action passing game.
And in this season’s first duel, which Jacksonville won 30:9 against a great defensive performance in Week 5, the Jaguars also showed that they can run against a box that was delivered. At the victory in Pittsburgh the Jags had 18 (!) consecutive runs in the final phase, the Steelers had no answer.
The same was true of Fournette’s 90-yard touchdown, which crowned the victory: a lead blocker, a double team on the play side, a pull blocker – it was a power run play from the textbook. It will be decisive that Jacksonville from these and comparable formations will be successful in the run game – but at the same time the Jaguars from these and similar line-ups must also be willing to throw play-action passes.
You can schematically spin the thought even further. The Jaguars should not only surprise with play action from running formations and supposed running downs – they should also bring Bortles into the game as runners.
He scored ten runs against Buffalo in total, some of which were scrambles, others planned zone reads; i. e. moves in which the quarterback reads a previously determined defender who is not blocked and, depending on his reaction, hands the ball over to the running back or starts running himself.
Jacksonville continued to build this Zone Read’s offensive game plan over the course of the season – Bortles’ runs (6 ATT, 62 YDS, 2 TD) were significantly more efficient than his passes (19/33,160 YDS, INT) at the 24:27 Arizona crash.
Among other things, you could see the effects of combining planned quarterback runs with play-action fakes when a defense against the Jaguars concentrates on the run. And that’s always noticeable: Defenses play a bit more aggressive against the Jags, Pittsburgh’s explosive and aggressive defensive line should not be an exception. This explosiveness could be used against the Steelers by Jacksonville.
Against Arizona, a pattern emerged – one that could also be promising for the Steelers game: Jacksonville mixed play-action fakes with planned quarterback runs and rounded it off with pull blockers. The result was an extremely dangerous offense, especially in and around the Red Zone.
Ultimately, the Jags need a sufficiently constant power from their offense to attack the Steelers’ linebacker weaknesses and at the same time use the aggressiveness of the heavily manned defensive line against Pittsburgh. All of this, however, would only be an attempt to give the defence the chance to win the game.
Here one can already look forward to a real heavyweight fight: According to consistent reports, Antonio Brown is actually at 100 percent, and during the week he trained fully with. This makes it all for the thrilling duel between Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant as well as JuJu Smith Schuster and the Jaguars Cornerbacks Jalen Ramsey, A. J. Bouye and Aaron Colvin.
Here the game will be decided decisively. With all the quality that Jacksonville undoubtedly owns in the pass rush from players such as Calais Campbell, Yannick Ngakoue and Dante Fowler, success here is also due to a not inconsiderable part of the outstanding coverage. This will be all the more true against a Steelers-Pass-Protection which has been very good for a long time.
Roethlisberger’s five interceptions against Jacksonville in Week 5 should not be overestimated, including several falsified passes and simply bad luck. But the Jags-Defense is unquestionably capable of making life difficult for every quarterback. And Bortles can then make enough placements – at least for a few days the critics would be silent.