So much for the thought that Jaguars rookie quarterback Blaine Gabbert needed time on the bench to develop.
After another solid performance in a joint practice with the Atlanta Falcons on Wednesday evening that saw him take an increased amount of snaps with the first-team offense, Gabbert is starting to close the gap with incumbent Jaguars starting quarterback David Garrard according to Tania Ganguli of The Floirda Times-Union.
The Jaguars coaching staff has said all along that the quarterback position would be an open competition this preseason, but nobody thought that with the lockout that Gabbert would have enough practice to overtake Garrard. Unfortunately for Garrard, the back injury he suffered early in camp allowed Gabbert to take all of the reps with the first team and play an entire half in the Jaguars preseason opener against the New England Patriots last Thursday.
Now that Garrard is back in practice, and is likely to start on Friday night when the Jaguars play the Falcons in their second preseason game, he has to perform at a high level to stay ahead of the surging rookie.
I would not doubt Garrard’s chances at winning the quarterback competition. Garrard had his best preseason in 2007 when he was in a competition with former Jaguars quarterback Byron Leftwich. Following the quarterback competition, Garrard had the best season of his career leading the Jaguars to the second round of the playoffs.
Regardless of who emerges from this competition with the starting quarterback job, the winner will surely have to be performing at a high level when the regular season begins. Having two quarterbacks on the roster that are capable of being effective starters in the NFL is a good problem for the Jaguars to have moving forward.
Buy Jacksonville Jaguars Apparel[...] has been speculation that Jaguars rookie quarterback Blaine Gabbert is starting to make a push to become the starting quarterb…. Unfortunately after all of the speculation last week, Gabbert had a lackluster performance in the [...]
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