Bortles: “Stupid things, easily correctable”
It’s an easy equation that leads to winning in London: Play better.
In their first two games at Wembley against San Francisco and Dallas the Jaguars weren’t competitive. Last year’s win over Buffalo was a wild swing of emotions but showed the team on the rise. This year it’s a division matchup the Jaguars should win. To do so, they’ll need better quarterback play from Blake Bortles, showing some version of the form from 2015 where he threw 35 TD passes.
“It’s just been such stupid things that have gone wrong that are easily correctable,” Blake said after Wednesday’s practice. “So that’s why for me I can’t wait to get another opportunity to go play, I can’t wait to get an opportunity to, like I said, reach our expectations and play the kind of football we know we can play as an offense and score the points and move the ball that we know we can.”
Even *Bortles admits that sounds like the same old explanations but he’s a true believer. He thinks the Jaguars will break out and show the same kind of scoring prowess and ability to move the ball that they had last year.
“it hasn’t been obviously what we wanted offensively but that doesn’t mean for a second that we’ve lost the confidence as an offense or lost who we are and what we believe we should do,” he explained. “I think our bar and our standard is still at the same level and we just haven’t been able to reach it yet.”
How do they fix that? More specifically, how will Bortles, who takes everything as his responsibility, get out of the funk?
“I think just keep playing,” he said. I’m not very complicated or an over-thinker. I enjoy to play the game of football. I think I play it best when it’s at its simplest form and I’m just having fun and enjoying the game and really, obviously, we’re moving the ball and being successful.
In his first three years, *Bortles has played his best in an up-tempo offense, running around looking like he’s having fun playing the game with friends. Offensive Coordinator Greg Olson hasn’t tried that yet early in the game but that could change this week. It should.
And *Bortles hasn’t lost any of his nerve or talent. He’s expecting to play well this week against a familiar opponent.
“I’ll continue to try and prepare as hard as I can and be as ready as possible, but when the game starts I’m going to go have fun and enjoy myself and have a good time with a bunch of good friends playing football in the NFL.”
