Blake Bortles says he gets the same criticisms as LeBron James
You’d probably have to think long and hard to find a reason to mention Blake Bortles in the same sentence as LeBron James.
But if you need help finding such a reason, Bortles has come up with one.
The Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback was asked about critics who still don’t believe he’s a quality passer.
“How many more games do you gotta win, how much more do you have to do to silence the haters?” a reporter asked Bortles on Wednesday.
With what appeared to be a straight face, Bortles compared his plight to that of one of the all-time greats of his sport.
“It’ll probably never stop,” Bortles said of the criticism he receives. “There’s people who think LeBron James sucks. So if that happens, I’m sure there will always be people who always think I suck.”
With that, Bortles walked away from the platform, either confident he had just given writers the one quote they’re certain to use from his press conference, or as a way to avoid the inevitable follow-up questions about the comparisons between himself and James.
Perhaps what Bortles was saying was that if someone as great as James still has haters, well, then no player can ever expect to silence all of their critics.
There’s certainly some truth to that, but I’m not sure the point was clearly made.
While Bortles did do something this year he had yet to do in his NFL career — lead the Jaguars to the playoffs — it was hardly a Pro Bowl-caliber season for the fourth-year quarterback from Central Florida.
Bortles threw for 21 touchdowns, down for the third year in a row and a drop from the career-high 35 he threw two years ago. He did complete a career-best 60.2 percent of his passes and his 13 interceptions also were the fewest of his career.
But, this is the same quarterback who threw five interceptions in an intra-squad scrimmage in the preseason.
Leading the Jags to their first playoff victory in a decade may temporarily mute some of the critics of Bortles, but compiling all of 87 passing yards and guiding the offense to one touchdown is probably not enough to win over the hearts of Jaguars nation.
No matter how the critics feel, Bortles is going to have to convince Tom Coughlin, Jacksonville’s executive VP of football operations, not to pursue another quarterback during the offseason.
Speculation is that Coughlin will make a pitch to bring Eli Manning to Jacksonville next season. Manning has said he doesn’t want to play anywhere but New York, but the thought of reuniting with Coughlin and starting for a team with one of the league’s best defenses might be more appealing to Manning than being a backup in the Big Apple if the Giants draft a quarterback with their first-round pick.
For now, Bortles and his teammates have to figure out a way to defeat Pittsburgh in Sunday’s AFC divisional playoff game if they want to keep this Cinderella season going. Doing so would go a long way toward silencing a few more of Bortles’ critics.
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