I don't put myself through the pain and torture of watching Jacksonville more than I really have to but what I have seen, I just do not find Bortles at all impressive.
Can't even muster up the motivation to be a little mad. That's how beaten down I am by both the futility of the Browns' existence AND bad officiating.
I mean I really don't expect that you watch Bortles much at all. He has a lot of highs and lows, which is maddening but a trend throughout our whole team. The highs are definitely full of things that many starting QBs struggle with, his best trait is extending pass plays. He shows patience in the pocket to allow deep reads to develop even while under pressure, isnt afraid of getting hit (polar opposite from Gabbert), has surprising ability to escape/a good clock in his head to escape at the right time, and when he does have to leave the pocket hes just as accurate on the run, even on deep throws. So when our line is playing well he makes teams cover for a long ass time before the play is over, and more often than not makes clean throws from all kinds of awkward angles while he's escaping the defense, which is tough to defend when he's "on". Sometimes pressure doesn't affect his accuracy at all and he's just putting the ball wherever he wants no matter how his feet were set. If he had Derek Carr's line instead of ours I don't have any doubt he'd be putting up numbers. He has a shitty line though, which exposes his biggest flaw which is - he sucks at getting rid of the ball quick and on time in West Coast style concepts. Our line gets killed and he cant make decisions fast enough. Carson Wentz for example is already better than him at that. That can be coached and practiced but right now his game is entirely reliant on his ability to extend plays, and our line is so bad that you dont even get to see that some games - those are the games where he just looks like he sucks. Hopefully as he learns how to make pre snap reads and checks at the line of scrimmage he can compensate for this and give himself more time or better short routes. Defenses really dont have a good frame of reference or pattern as a defense for when he is going to release the ball/how long they have to cover, because he still is a passing quarterback and only runs when he needs to, so sometimes it can be hard to predict. But he's just really not consistent. Has too many bad games right now to say he "is good" rather than he "can be good"
Is it fair to say he's the most disliked player in the league yet ? His shit is gonna get super old and I could see the Giants getting rid of him.