“Yeah, he’s our quarterback, there’s no doubt about it,” Marrone said. “But one of the things that we’re doing is we’re still looking to make sure that we’re upgraded at each position. So we’re still looking. There are some veterans out there that we might look at to bring in along with the young guys that we have.”
This is a head-scratching habit of inadequate organizations; when they seem to hit on a young quarterback, they mess it all up by (somewhat unintentionally) igniting a quarterback controversy.
We understand if the Jaguars aren’t 100% convinced that Minshew will be their long-time quarterback. After all, it was only a year ago that the Washington State product was an unknown sixth-rounder. However, as a rookie, the mustached, jock-strap-wearing fan-favorite couldn’t have done much more to convince the front office of his talents.
Minshew ended up appearing in 14 games (12 starts) in 2019, completing 60.6-percent of his passes for 3,271 yards, 21 touchdowns, and six interceptions. As a rookie (note the emphasis), he had a 1.3-percent pass/interception percentage, good for sixth in the league (tied with Tom Brady and ahead of MVP Lamar Jackson).
Most importantly, Minshew led the Jaguars to a 6-6 record as a starter. For comparison’s sake, the organization had previously won six or more games only once since 2011.
In other words, what more could Minshew prove to the front office?
Perhaps something, as reports indicated that the Jaguars previously reached out to the Bengals about Andy Dalton. The veteran has since been released, and there’s speculation that he could land in Jacksonville.
Cam Newton has also been mentioned as a potential option for the Jaguars, especially after running back Leonard Fournette publicly pushed for Jacksonville to sign the former MVP. If the organization is eyeing veterans, then Joe Flacco would also presumably be a target, and there were reports last offseason that Jacksonville was eyeing the veteran before he landed in Denver.
Either way, it seems inevitable that the Jaguars will add a veteran to compete with Minshew. Any signing wouldn’t do much to impact Jacksonville’s NFL-low +15000 Super Bowl odds. For that reason alone, there’s absolutely no incentive to not fully commit to Minshew heading into 2020.
