Blake Bortles helped propel the Jacksonville Jaguars to a playoff berth. Opponents, however, have been reluctant to give the quarterback credit for his recent hot streak.
Jadeveon Clowney was the latest, calling Bortles 'trash' after the Jags' 45-7 blowout of the Houston Texans.
Bortles brushed aside the criticisms.
"I've heard a lot of stuff. I'd imagine the stuff I didn't see somebody told me about]. I'm sure there are things out there that I have no idea about," he said of disparaging remarks, [via the team's official website. "But I could care less. If how we're playing and how I'm playing is trash then I'm fine with being trash."
While the world has waited for Bortles to implode this season, the Jags quarterback played the most inspired football of his career over the past three weeks.
The fourth-year pro is the only quarterback without an INT since Week 12 (minimum 50 attempts), tossing seven touchdowns in that span. He has three straight games with a 100-plus passer rating for the first time in his career. Since Week 13, Bortles ranks 1st in the NFL in passer rating (128.6), and TD-INT ratio (7-0), and fifth in completion percentage (71.4) and passing yards per game (301.0).
With the Jags' ground game mostly bottled up in recent weeks, Bortles has helped the Jags' offense morph into a big-play air-raid. In the past three games, Bortles has completed 80 percent of his 10-plus air-yard passes for three touchdowns and zero interceptions. He owns a perfect passer rating, 158.3, on such passes since Week 13.
With opponents still trashing his play, Bortles will glide into the postseason looking for a Joe Flacco-like run in January. If his streak continues, the Jags are a legit Super Bowl contender in the AFC.
