Jaguars quarterback Blaine Gabbert said he glances at the wound on his right hand every day, a gash that needed 15 stitches to close.
“I get to look at it,” Gabbert said with a smile. “It doesn’t look pretty at all.”
There’s a cheap joke to be made about the same being said for his performance in the opener (16-of-35, 121 yards, two interceptions), but that seems like piling on at this point.
Gabbert’s being held out this week because of the cut on his throwing hand, which tore off part of the skin. It’s the same hand on which he suffered a broken thumb in the preseason, but this is a different concern.
“In these early stages, the risk for infection is pretty high,” Gabbert said, via John Oehser of the team’s official website. “We’re doing our best to eliminate everything that can go wrong.”
He said he wasn’t sure when he’d be able to return. Until he does, the Jaguars are going with Chad Henne as the starter, beginning Sunday against the Raiders.
“My job is to play as well as I can and hopefully, just keep the job,” Henne said. “That’s how I’m going to play.”
That’s the kind of thing every backup says, but it’s obvious the Jaguars are going to give Gabbert plenty of rope. They declared him the starter the same day they announced he’d miss time in the preseason because of the broken thumb, so they’re clearly sensitive to the perception of the pecking order.
Unless Henne lights up the Raiders (which isn’t out of the realm of possibility), it’s extremely unlikely they’d reverse course on Gabbert so soon.