On Thursday Night Football, the Jacksonville Jaguars faced the Chicago Bears in the teams' second preseason game. Jacksonville's first round draft selection Blake Bortles made his case as to why he should be the starting quarterback Week 1.
The Jags have some good competition in training camp between Chad Henne and Blake Bortles. Henne has spent his last two seasons with the Jaguars after playing for the Miami Dolphins from 2008-2011. Jacksonville has arguably been one of the worst teams in the NFL in recent years, compiling an 11-37 record over the past three seasons. Henne is 5-14 with the team and is expected to be the Week 1 starter this year.
But Bortles is not making the decision easy for the coaching staff with his solid performances. In his first preseason game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bortles was 7-of-11 for 117 yards with a 99.4 QB rating. He followed that up last night going 11-of-17 for 160 yards with a rating of 95.2. Although head coach Gus Bradley reiterated that Chad Henne will be the Week 1 starter because the team wants to develop Bortles, the former Central Florida quarterback is strongly campaigning for the starting job as he has shown he can effectively pass in and out of the pocket in his first two NFL preseason games.
As for the other highly regarded rookie quarterback, Johnny Manziel will face off against the Washington Redskins on Monday night. But Manziel ran into a bit of trouble with the Browns this week when he and a number of other rookies were late for a team meeting on Monday. According to sources, Manziel and the others misread the team schedule and arrived a few minutes late, and the Cleveland Browns decided they would handle the matter internally. As expected, quarterback Brian Hoyer will start on Monday night in Washington and Manziel will jump in after a few series.
Despite Manziel's first slip, he has reportedly impressed the coaching staff with his work ethic and improvement as a player. The former Heisman-winner is said to have gone into work on off days to get treatment and review game film. In Manziel's first preseason game against the Detroit Lions, he was 7-of-11 for 63 yards with a QB rating of 79 and he also rushed six times for 27 yards.
These rookie quarterbacks have just under three weeks to convince their coaches they are worthy of a chance to start Week 1. You can catch up with the latest NFL news on the NBC Sports ProFootballTalk website.
