The Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback situation remains a mess. Blake Bortles struggled through the first three weeks of training camp, and was replaced in the starting lineup this week by Chad Henne. On Thursday evening against the Carolina Panthers, Henne was 8 of 14 for 73 yards. Bortles came on in relief and completed 12 of 16 passes for 125 yards with one touchdown and one interception.
The team does not seem to have a clear answer, and no matter how much they invest in free agency, they need to figure out the quarterback position. One option to potentially add to the QB room is Colin Kaepernick. There have been no reports of contact between the Jaguars and Kaepernick, but Jaguars owner Shad Khan appears publicly comfortable with signing him.
Just saw Jags owner Shad Khan. Asked him if his football people recommended signing Kaepernick, would he be OK w/ it. Answer: "Absolutely."
— Mike Dempsey (@md_1010xl) August 24, 2017
It is nice to hear an owner go on the record and say they’re OK with signing it. Tom Coughlin is the team’s executive vice president of football operations, and we don’t know how he feels about Kaepernick. Well, we might know given that they haven’t signed him thus far, but it remains somewhat unclear.
The Jaguars are perpetual offseason winners in free agency, but they have yet to turn that into any kind of sustained success. And some of that can be traced back to their inability to find a quality quarterback. They have spent a top ten pick on the quarterback position twice since 2011, drafting Blaine Gabbert at No. 10 in 2011, and Blake Bortles at No. 3 in 2014. Neither has worked out, and they are closing in on back at square one at the position.
I don’t expect them to sign Kaepernick anytime soon, but they’ll need to figure something out if they want to build anything resembling success down there. They face the San Francisco 49ers in Week 16, and right now, I don’t think anybody could predict with certainty who will be starting at quarterback for Jacksonville when that game arrives. Who knows, maybe it ends up being Colin Kaepernick!