Is this REALLY, finally the end for Blake Bortles and the Jaguars?

Blake Bortles has been benched before. The Jaguars moved Chad Henne to the top of the depth chart for part of the 2017 preseason, and yanked Bortles in favor of Cody Kessler during an October loss to the Texans this season.

That makes the team’s announcement Monday that Kessler will be the starting quarterback the third time Bortles has been benched in the last 15 months. This time feels different, though.

For one, it will keep Bortles out of the Jaguars’ starting lineup for a regular season game for the first time since September of his rookie season in 2014. His 72 consecutive starts was the fifth-longest active streak among quarterbacks — behind only Philip Rivers, Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford, and Russell Wilson. It was the 25th-longest starting streak an NFL quarterback has ever had.

That streak will end with seven consecutive losses. The last was a 24-21 loss to the Buffalo Bills that he finished with 127 passing yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. Those stats would’ve been worse if he didn’t throw for 48 yards and a touchdown on the Jaguars’ last five offensive plays of the game.

For much of the day, he made some truly atrocious throws:

Bortles has 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions on the year. His 81.9 passer rating is 30th among starting quarterbacks. It’s not all his fault — the Jaguars are severely lacking at wide receiver, and the offensive line has been decimated by injuries.

So now — with a disastrous season for the Jaguars down to its last month — Bortles will watch from the sideline while Kessler takes the reins. It’s something that probably should’ve happened over a month ago, but does it mean Bortles has played his final snaps in Jacksonville?

A run to the AFC Championship in 2017 convinced the Jaguars that even if Bortles isn’t an elite passer, he’s good enough to take the team to the Super Bowl. After all, they were razor close to beating the Patriots to get there, and Bortles finished with a 98.5 passer rating in that game. So he got a three-year, $54 million extension in the offseason.

That sounds like a lot, but the $18 million per year average ranks just 17th in the NFL among quarterbacks. The extension actually saved the Jaguars money in the immediate instead of paying Bortles the $19.053 million fully guaranteed he was due in 2018 on the fifth-year option of his rookie contract.

The risk of giving Bortles the extension was that it would be difficult to part with him if the Jaguars didn’t want him around in 2019. Alas, here we are.

Bortles is due to count $21 million against Jacksonville’s salary cap in 2019. By releasing him, the team would recoup only $4.5 million in cap savings with $16.5 million in dead space. There’s also offset language in the contract that means another team can inherit part of his base salary. For example, if another team gives Bortles $5 million in base salary for the 2019 season, the Jaguars would save $9.5 million and have $11.5 million in dead space.

That’s a difficult pill to swallow, but far from a back-breaking one. The Jaguars have some difficult cap decisions to make in 2019, but getting whatever savings they can out of Bortles should be an easy call if they’ve decided he’s no longer their quarterback of the future.

There’s a silver lining that comes with losing seven consecutive games: that beautiful, appetizing draft pick.

Through 12 weeks of the season with five left to play, the Jaguars sit sixth in the 2019 NFL Draft order. Ahead of them are the 49ers, Cardinals, Raiders, Jets, and Giants, in that order. The good news for Jacksonville — if they decide to go quarterback hunting — is that the Giants may be the only one of those teams also in the market for a passer.

The 49ers recently hitched their tailgate to Jimmy Garoppolo, and the Cardinals and Jets just drafted Josh Rosen and Sam Darnold, respectively. The Raiders are the only other team in the top five and could potentially be on the lookout for a quarterback if Derek Carr’s continued regression convinces them it’s time to move on.

Either way, the good news for the Jaguars is that they are close to the top of a draft that doesn’t have many quarterback-hungry teams. The bad news is that the 2018 NFL Draft may have been the time to go shopping for a passer.

Five quarterbacks were picked in the first round and four in the top 10. That was a historic night for quarterbacks, and all five have started at least part of their rookie seasons.

The 2019 class probably won’t be as prolific for passers. Oregon’s Justin Herbert is the top passer in most mock drafts — including Dan Kadar’s most recent — but after that, it’s a little more difficult to parse through the field of prospects.

But as long as the Jaguars don’t magically solve their issues and rattle off wins in December, they’ll be in position to take one of, if not the, top quarterback(s) of the 2019 NFL Draft.

When the Jaguars fired Nathaniel Hackett on Monday morning, he became the third offensive coordinator to get the ax for failing to find sustained success with Bortles at quarterback.

Since the beginning of the 2014 season, no quarterback has thrown more interceptions than Bortles, who has 74. Only Russell Wilson has fumbled more.

His struggles as a passer forced the Jaguars to build an offense that ran the ball a league-leading 527 times in 2017. There’s nothing really wrong with building an offense that relies on a powerful rushing attack, but it’s best complemented by a quarterback who is efficient and mistake-free. Bortles has been neither.

The Jaguars entered the 2018 season as a Super Bowl favorite, but now it’s a last-place team again. The quarterback position isn’t the only reason the 2018 season was flushed away by the Jaguars; it’s just the most significant one.

Jacksonville could’ve signed a free agent quarterback like Kirk Cousins or Case Keenum. It could’ve traded for Alex Smith or Tyrod Taylor. It could’ve drafted Lamar Jackson at the tail end of the first round in April. It reportedly turned down the chance to trade for Teddy Bridgewater in August. The team opted to be patient with Bortles instead.

The Jaguars waited for him to become the quarterback they thought he’d be when he was picked No. 3 overall in the 2014 NFL Draft. It’s obvious that dream isn’t going to come to fruition, so now it’s time for the Jaguars to right their previous wrongs and move on. In other words, don’t expect to see Bortles still playing in Jacksonville in 2019.