Blake Bortles: Nice Sleeper For Fantasy Football Week 5

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If you look at what rookie quarterback Blake Bortles did for the Jacksonville Jaguars in his first career start in week 4, the numbers don’t necessarily blow you away, particularly from a Fantasy perspective.

Bortles completed a nice 78.4 percent of his 37 passing attempts for 253 yards, but only threw one touchdown and was picked off twice. He did add some extra value with five carries for 24 yards, but he overall wasn’t anything to speak of in week 4 for a Jaguars team that’s clearly one of the league’s punching-bags.

Even with that performance not doing much for anyone, though, I like Bortles as a sleeper in week 5 as he takes on the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Though the final line from week 4 against the San Diego Chargers isn’t attractive to fantasy players, it’s also a bit misleading. Bortles looked quite good in the first half of this game and, had the Jags been able to run the ball a bit more, they could have very well been in the lead. Things started to fall apart for Bortles as they fell behind in the second half, though, as he threw both his picks after the break and failed to lead Jacksonville to any scores as well.

The sneaky part of all of this, though, is that the Chargers have a pretty good pass defense that’s been getting better on a week-to-week basis this season. On the contrary, the Steelers do not have a great pass defense at all.

Over the last two weeks against the lackluster duo of Cam Newton and Mike Glennon, the Steelers have given up over 300 yards passing and at least two scores through the air. That bodes well for Bortles coming into this week.

Don’t expect Bortles to come out and look like Andrew Luck or Peyton Manning this week, but don’t be afraid to take a gamble on him either. There’s a fairly likely chance that the rookie could have a nice day at the office in his second career start.

Cody Williamsis a Senior Writer with Rant Sports. Follow Cody on Twitter @TheSizzle20, add him on Google and like his Facebook page.


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