Blake Bortles Remains the Starter for the Jaguars

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The Jacksonville Jaguars grew tired of seeing their starting quarterback make mistakes this past weekend. Although it was a long time coming, it was only a matter of time until the Jaguars sent Blake Bortles to the bench for his poor play this season. As the Jaguars were losing to the Houston Texans, Jags head coach Doug Marrone decided that enough was enough, and they put in Cody Kessler at quarterback.

On Monday afternoon, everybody was curious to see if the benching would be a permanent move. Marrone wouldn’t confirm as he wanted to meet with both quarterback’s on Monday first, before letting the media know. But after his brief meeting with the two quarterback’s went down, the head coach confirms that Bortles will not lose his starting job, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Bortles Gets Another Chance

Perhaps the decision to bench Bortles was to teach him a lesson. After all, he is coming off of one of his better seasons in 2017. Although he wasn’t necessarily in an ‘elite’ category, the Jaguars have been made aware that they can win games with Bortles under center. But for some reason, they just cannot get it together this year as a team. And unfortunately, Bortles becomes the focal point of the teams offensive struggles.

As the Jaguars threw in Cody Kessler against the Houston Texans this past weekend, he didn’t exactly shift the momentum of the game. He threw for 156 yards with a touchdown and an interception as the Jaguars fell short of beating the Texans 20-7. Going forward, the Jaguars will continue to ride with Bortles, but you have to imagine that the quarterback is on a short leash.

Bortles is legitimately one mistake away from being benched for good, and everybody in Jacksonville is pretty much aware of that. Next week, the Jaguars will travel to London to take on the Philadelphia Eagles.

The pressure from the Eagles defensive line could be tough for Bortles to overcome, but the Eagles have been quite weak in their secondary. If the Jaguars offensive line can keep Bortles protected, he could have decent week eight and bounce back against the defending Super Bowl Champions.