The muddled mechanical snafus plaguing Blake Bortles have all but sunk the Jaguars this season.
In an effort not to slide further into the abyss, though, Jacksonville's starting quarterback plans to do something about it.
Bortles announced Monday that he's recruited help in the form of personal quarterback coach Adam Dedeaux, who will spend the next two days working with the third-year passer.
Bortles has sharply regressed this season, plagued weekly by a super-long windup that has caused disastrous chemistry issues with his wideouts. He's missing open targets, throwing behind his pass-catchers and admittedly feeling the pressure on offense. The coaching staff has failed to fix the issue, leading the Jaguars to fire offensive coordinator Greg Olson after last week's ugly loss to the Titans.
"Frustrated for sure," Bortles said after that defeat. "Like I said earlier in the week or last week, you know, confidence isn't an issue. I believe in myself and this team 100 percent.
"It's just a broken record. It's a lack of execution. It's mistakes. It's the same stuff every week."
Still a developing player with the bulk of his career ahead of him, Bortles is too young to be counted out. That said, his play this autumn suggests a signal-caller in need of a comprehensive reboot.
It's distressing for Jaguars fans to see their quarterback of the future devolving before their eyes. Even more so when the coaching staff has largely refuted that any mechanical issues exist.
Bortles was hoping to see a change after spending the 2015 offseason with sports biomechanics guru Tom House. He spent the previous spring working with Jordan Palmer to develop a smoother throwing motion that was on display during the 2014 preseason -- only to fall apart during the year.
The same regular-season regression has hampered Bortles this autumn, too, leading to genuine concern in Jacksonville over a player the organization planned to build around for years.
It's unfair to expect Dedeaux to land in Florida and fix this situation over a two-day stretch, but at least Bortles is addressing the mess head on.
