The Jacksonville Jaguars season came to an end last week after a loss to the New England Patriots. This week, their starting quarterback Blake Bortles had surgery on his right wrist to repair some minor damage. This was first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Jaguars’ QB Blake Bortles underwent right wrist surgery Friday for a condition that kept him on the injury report all season, sources told ESPN.
Bortles dealt with the issue since December 2016. The Jaguars elected to avoid surgery last offseason, but knew it was needed now.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 30, 2018
Now since nothing went wrong this should just be a simple surgery with very little consequences as long as it is rehabbed properly and this is the end of the article. Not really.
That is actually the opposite of the case and this minor surgery could have MAJOR implications come the beginning of the league year. The Jags got Bortles on a fifth-year option for $19 million in 2018, this is only guaranteed if he is injured.
This means if Blake Bortles isn’t medically cleared to play football by March 14th at 4 pm the team is on the hook for every dollar of that $19 million. Now, this might be fine for a team whose future includes Bortles as he should be ready for season start regardless of his status in March. But if this team wanted to move on their now handcuffed to Bortles for at least one more year.
This isn’t all bad as the Jags could use this as an opportunity to draft one of this year’s prospects and red-shirt him a year to see what he’s got. The only issue is with this defense Jacksonville is in win now mode and a big free agent such as Kirk Cousins could put them over the top next year.
Two years out from having mounds of cap space we will have to see if past mistakes will haunt them building a championship contender while they have a great roster on the books already.
