NFL- He may be an All-Pro when it comes to blocking out the noise, but Blake Bortles is not tone-deaf. As the universally maligned quarterback -- for now, at least -- of a Jacksonville Jaguars team best known for a playmaking defense and a power running attack, Bortles knows his role is to keep taking hits, on and off the field, and he's not running away from his fate.
"I'm totally at peace with that," Bortles told NFL.com in an interview last week, four days before he was benched in the second half of a 20-7 home defeat to the Houston Texans, only to be reinstalled as the starter for Sunday's showdown with the Philadelphia Eagles at Wembley Stadium in London. "I totally understand that I'm like the scapegoat for this team. When we play good, 'The defense played well, the running back did good, the receivers made great plays.' And when we play bad, 'Blake Bortles is the worst quarterback on the face of the planet.' "And I get it. Obviously, that's not what I would have chosen for myself. And I'm sure it'll never stop. But I couldn't care less. I just want to win football games with this team." ------- While the use of the term 'scapegoat' is a bit misleading, as there is a pretty sizable difference between taking blame you don't deserve and having blame you've earned forcefully shoved in your face, I kind of respect what Blake Bortles did with those comments. Sometimes you just have to try to change the narrative, as hopeless as the attempt might be, and painting himself as a good teammate for embracing his role as a bad quarterback is quite the spin-zone. To be clear, I have no idea how accepting the backlash that comes of being one of the worst quarterbacks makes him a better person, but I think I've been duped into believing it. All the sudden, I feel this weird urge to make note of a Jaguars defense that, like most defenses in this offensively uninhibited era, has grown much, much more inconsistent in their play this season. It's almost as if buying into the 'scapegoat' label, under what was probably both figuratively and literally the threat of violence, has made the act of pointing the finger at Jacksonville's biggest problem seem like overkill. Of course, the wide receivers he mentioned can't make plays without the ball being delivered within a 5 foot radius of them, but what fun is it to blame the person who is flat out asking to be blamed? As far as I'm concerned, the whole roster needs to get their shit together, because it's just not fair that Blake Bortles is tooootally the first inconsistent quarterback in NFL history to be seen as guilty in defeat and a dodged bullet in victory.
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