NFL
Every 2017 NFL Playoff Team's Biggest Weakness
In the postseason, one weakness can bring your season to a sudden halt. What is the biggest shortcoming for the 12 teams in the 2017 NFL playoffs?

Jacksonville Jaguars: Quarterback Play

This is fully nitpicky because the Jaguars are a solid team. We know how good their pass defense is, the rush defense ranks eighth in the league since the Dareus acquisition, and Leonard Fournette has shown how good he can be when healthy.

There are still a few unanswered questions around Blake Bortles, though.

We don't want to look back to 2016 because Bortles is a different quarterback now than he was then. Clearly, the addition of some pieces to the offensive line and an improved ground game have helped him turn the page from that nightmare of a season. Even some of the 2017 numbers, though, allow us to look at him with a bit of skepticism.

Bortles finished the regular season ranked 16th in Passing NEP per drop back out of 45 quarterbacks with at least 100 drop backs. That's not bad at all. But out of the quarterbacks still alive in the postseason, he ranks eighth, putting him in the bottom half. And that's despite facing plenty of low-level competition in the regular season.

Of the team's 16 games, just six came against teams in the top half of the league in Adjusted Defensive Passing NEP per play. This means that 62.5% of their games were facing defenses in the bottom half of the league against the pass. You would expect a quarterback to succeed in those scenarios. Bortles did to an extent, but he still didn't quite measure up to his peers in the playoffs.

This isn't to take away anything from what Bortles did in 2017 because it was a truly impressive performance. But it's yet to be seen how good he can be against upper-level competition. We'll get a glimpse at this in the wild card round as the Bills ranked 12th against the pass, and it may just get tougher from there.

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