Blaine Gabbert has been criticized so much for his lack of toughness in the pocket, including here at Around the League, that it's hard to root against the guy now.
A lot of puff pieces have been written about the Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback's improvement this offseason, but it's hard to assess anything at this point. His first preseason outing included some nice moments and some bad habits.
Yep, that pocket presence thing again.
We like the fact that Gabbert is firing back at his critics for saying he plays "scared."
"I think that's part of our job description: Deal with the crap," Gabbert told Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports in an article published Friday, just hours before the quarterback went 13-of-16 passing for 112 yards and two touchdowns in his second preseason game. "But for people to say (I'm scared), I just don't understand it. They've never played in the NFL. They really don't know what goes on, or what happens.
"So that argument, I think, is just a copout for people to make because they're -- I don't want to necessarily want to say jealous -- but, they couldn't do my job. And that's the truth. They can't do my job. There are 31 other guys that can do my job, and that's it."
Gabbert's teammates and coaches strongly back him in the piece, which is definitely worth a read. But what else are they going to do? As much as we like this new, fiery Gabbert, he ultimately can only respond on the field.
That makes him one of the players we're most fascinated to watch this season. It actually would be nice to be wrong about the guy.
Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthal.
