Another San Joaquin Valley QB could be in right spot at right time for Jaguars

Cody Kessler is going to start for the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday and that will make three starting quarterbacks in the NFL from the San Joaquin Valley – two from Bakersfield in Kessler and Derek Carr and Firebaugh’s Josh Allen, and that’s a very cool deal.

I don’t know if we’re going to be lucky enough to have that happen too often. Maybe Kessler can do well and make this into a long-term thing.

With quarterbacks in the NFL, uncertainty is the thing. They could be a first-round pick. They could be undrafted. You never know where these guys are going to come from, when they’re going to get their chance with the right system, the right coaching, the right group of players around them. Kurt Warner was bagging groceries before he got his shot and he turned into a Hall of Fame quarterback.

It just takes the right situation and what’s interesting about Jacksonville is it’s the exact right situation for a quarterback to go in and take over. You have a team that’s just hungry for somebody to give them life at the quarterback position.

The Jaguars have a defense that’s extremely talented and they’re just exhausted. They’re tired of having to carry the load – that offense with Blake Bortles at quarterback produced 15 points a game in a seven-game losing streak.

All offseason, all we did was ask, “Are they really going to stick with Blake Bortles?” Sure, he played better toward the end of the year. But the concern everywhere was that the Jaguars, who made the AFC championship game last season, were wasting their window. When your team is good and has a defense like Jacksonville has, you don’t have forever to figure it out. You have a very small window, two or three years where your team is going to be like that.

To just roll with Blake, with all of the issues that he has had, was kind of shocking.

But if you instill some life there, if you can go out there against the Colts on Sunday and get off to a good start, you can instantly change that dynamic.

Look at what they did last year when Bortles played some decent football in the playoffs – they beat the Steelers, made it all the way to the conference championship game and were an incredible football team.

What’s interesting is they just fired their offensive coordinator, as well.. I’ve seen this happen time and again over the past two decades: When an offensive coordinator is fired, that next week the opposing defense doesn’t know how to prepare.

When I was in Houston we went through a coordinator change my fourth year. It was early in the season. The offensive coordinator was fired in Week 2, after a game against the Steelers, and we go into the next week to play Cincinnati with an offensive line coach as our coordinator and the Bengals had no idea what to expect.

In our first 30 plays, they just lined up in base defense and were just spectators, and we rolled out and played pretty well.

That’s a product of not knowing what to expect and Kessler has that opportunity with his new coordinator (Scott Milanovich) to maybe surprise the Colts on Sunday.

Kessler can get some things done. I’ve known him since he was 13 or 14 years old. He’s a Bakersfield boy, like me. The first time I saw him he was training with a good friend of mine, Eric Mahanke, and Eric asked me to come out and take a look at this young kid, said he was a pretty good athlete who wants to start playing quarterback. The first time I saw Cody throw, he had incredible mechanics and it was just really natural for him.

He doesn’t have the biggest arm, but he’s a guy who’s very solid and very accurate. And the moment is not going to be too big for him – he played at USC, so he has been in some big games.

It’s just a great opportunity for a guy who has been around the league for a little while. Thinking about where I was at the same point in my career, I know he feels confident about playing the game.

Question of the week

From Tom Phan, Clovis: I was just wondering how you felt watching your brother get sacked seven times in a game. Did it bring back memories of your first days with Houston?

It does, and for any quarterback in that situation, it’s a balancing act. I remember when I was getting sacked a ton in Houston, I would hear one thing in the quarterback meeting room: “We have chances to take shots down the field, let’s see if we can hang in there and give these guys an opportunity.” Then you break that meeting and walk down the hall and the offensive line coach catches you in the hallway and he’s telling you, “Hey, Dave, whatever you have to do, man, we have to find a way. Get the ball out of your hand.”

You go to lunch with conflicting reports about the status of your football team. You’re like, “OK, I don’t want to get my offensive line coach fired, but I also want to take some shots because I want to win a football game.”

You find yourself playing this battle in your head. Your coach and your quarterbacks coach are telling you, “Make sure you hit these plays.” But you hang in there a little bit wanting to get the ball down the field and you take a sack, and then you go to the sideline and the same guys who were telling you to hang on to the ball and take a shot down the field are now telling you to get the ball out of your hand.

You have to get through it, because it’s not getting any better. You’re not going to sign a Hall of Fame tackle off the street, so you have to see if you can make something positive out of it and stay healthy, mentally and physically.

David Carr answers your questions

Each week, David Carr will answer a reader’s question in his column. Submit your questions by email to sports@fresnobee.com (please put “David Carr” in the subject line)