Derek Carr is the darling of the football Bills Aaron Williams Nike Jersey cognoscenti. Teddy Bridgewater has helped his team win five of its first seven games. Johnny Manziel, is well, Johnny Manziel. And we all inspected every one of Jimmy Garoppolo's summer throws on the presumption that he would open the season as a starter. Yes, the quarterback class of 2014 has been all over the news in recent months -- and yet there has been no national discussion about the guy drafted ahead of them all. Blake Bortles, the No. 3 overall pick last year, has been toiling quietly for a Jacksonville Jaguars franchise that is 5-18 since his arrival. So as he approaches his 21st NFL start Sunday, a flashpoint where most NFL evaluators begin making long-term career projections, it's worth asking: Is Bortles going to make it? The numbers suggest that his team's poor performance has overshadowed easily documented individual progress. No quarterback had more room for improvement -- Bortles' 21.9 Total Quarterback Rating in 2014 was one of the worst by a rookie quarterback since QBR records began -- but there is no denying it has occurred. Whether that leads to a successful career could depend on whether the Jaguars surround him with a better team, but for the moment, Bortles has done his part. Put simply, Bortles has been more aggressive Texans Alfred Blue Elite Jersey and dealt far more effectively with pressure than he did as a rookie. He is extending plays, reducing sacks and taking better advantage of the Jaguars' scoring opportunities. Let's hit a few of those areas in detail. First up: the blitz. Many rookies struggle against pressures of five or more men, but as the first chart shows, no qualified quarterback in the league last season performed worse against it than Bortles. And this season, opponents are blitzing him on 34.1 percent of his dropbacks -- the 10th-highest rate in the league. But Bortles has responded in a way that might bring down those numbers eventually. Nearly half of his 15 touchdown passes have come against the blitz, and his QBR in those situations is five times higher than it was in 2014. It's reasonable to wonder if that development Chiefs Dontari Poe Authentic Jersey has resulted from better pass protection rather than higher efficiency from Bortles, and it's true that he is getting sacked less. (He has been sacked on 6.4 percent of dropbacks this season, down from 10 percent in 2014.) But Bortles deserves more credit than anyone for reducing that number because, if anything, he is seeing more pressure this season.