In Browns rumors tonight, former Central Florida starting quarterback Blake Bortles may be Cleveland Browns head coach Mike Pettine's dream starting quarterback out of the 2014 NFL Draft class at quarterback.
According to Mike Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal, Mike Pettine believes that Bortles embodies everything that a team should look for in a potential franchise quarterback -- at least from initial impressions--
“He has all the measurables,” Pettine stated at the NFL owners' meetings back in March. “If you look at him, if you said, ‘Draw me an NFL quarterback,’ that’s probably who you’d draw. I think the thing that’s impressive about him is his ability in crunch time in a lot of tight games, a lot of come-from-behind wins, you can see he’s confident, can make all the throws. I think he’s a better athlete than some people give him credit for.”
Per Peter Sowards of ProFootballRumors.com, "Ulrich writes that Pettine “made it clear” last week during minicamp that he’d prefer to sit a rookie quarterback behind incumbent starter Brian Hoyer as opposed to throwing the rookie’s feet to the fire immediately."
Many draft analysts, including ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr., believe that would be in the best interest of Bortles to sit for a year and learn the position at the NFL level instead of jumping in head first.