Hack and Petty got all the reps again today. Monday's press conference (where Bowles has said he will announce the Week 1 starter) is going to be a clusterfuck. The reporters will rightfully call out Bowles for mismanaging this no matter what decision he makes. If you're starting McCown, how can you justify the rep distribution the last 2 weeks? If you're starting Hack, how can you justify simply handing him the job after how he looked Saturday? If you're starting Petty, why has he been running 3rd all summer? There's no right answer to any of these questions. It was botched.
And, if your plan was to start Hack no matter what because he's a 2nd round pick and it's a young team and you want to find out what you have in him in this rebuilding year before deciding on whether or not to take a QB next year... Why put on the charade of a QB competition? All it did was waste reps that could have been used to develop him and get him chemistry with the 1s. I get not wanting to "hand him the job" and "make him earn it." But, he didn't, and now you'd literally be handing him the job without him earning it.
I think the path of least resistance right now would be to go with hack. He's been the second best qb through the totality of camp and mccown may have been better but still not good.
I never thought it made sense to start McCown when the rest of the team is a bunch of rookies set to win 3 games. But then why not make that decision from the jump and start grooming Hack for week 1 at the onset of camp? It's not like Hack had some jaw dropping performance that made them change their plan. It almost seems like they completely changed their mind on the direction they wanted to go in 2/3rds of the way through camp. Perhaps somebody gave out a QB mandate before he ran off to England.
My thought on that is they saw what mccown is and decided it's not good enough to bother with. I agree that, and many of us were vocal about it in the spring, they should have just went with young qbs from the beginning. Even grab another reclamation project if you wanted a vet. Mccown just doesn't fit the rest of the team
If it isn't McCown then why did we pay him 9 million dollars? He was taking reps with the scount team today. WTF is going on?
McCown should have been an emergency option for this team, nothing more nothing less. Hackenberg and Petty should have received a majority of the reps with the first team, while McCown got the rest. This coaching staff is clueless.
Dont know what is going on, but I'm encouraged that the young guys are getting most of the work. Not sold on Hack being ready, and dont believe the Jets should "just throw him out there". Tally at end of training camp: McCown: 11 Hack: 14 Petty: 18
Idk about camp but certainly in the preseason games Hack has not looked like the 2nd best QB on this team.
I can certainly identify with that! Still, I'd rather they just stick with what they have at this point and let the ship sink completely as hard as that will be to watch. They need to truly rebuild.
Good questions/points. To begin with, I think Bowles is clueless and that's why there is no good answer. That said, I'm admittedly biased against Bowles, so in order to be fair, I'm gonna take a wild stab at some kind of reasoning. I think the competition was always a sham, and the plan all along (at least in Bowles' mind) was to start McCown. That's why he got most of the reps early to make sure that he was ready. Bowles now (and maybe Morton and Bates) either feels comfortable/confident enough in McCown's leadership and how he was running the offense that he will do well enough in the preseason game against the Giants and with the remaining practices after the Giants game to get ready for the season. Following that line of reasoning, given the state of our OL and McCown's injury history, he/they either believe(s) that they should give Hack and Petty more reps to try to get one of them ready to play when inevitably McCown goes down with injury or flat out sucks, or it's just for appearances sake to appease the fans and media who have claimed that he wasn't giving them enough of a chance to win the starting job. I think their telling McCown not to speak to the media following the Lions preseason game figures into this. The only two options that make sense to me are that McCown is injured (I don't think he is) or they told him he had already won the starting job, and they were going to let him rest his arm the rest of TC, and let Petty and Hack fight it out for the backup spot through the rest of TC, then he would get all the reps going forward. The only other thing that even remotely makes sense, and it's "out there," is that they initially hoped Petty or Hack would win the starting job, but thought McCown would win. When Petty struggled early learning the offense and Hack was still working on his fundamentals they shelved the idea of either of them starting and were planning on going with McCown. Then McCown didn't play that much better than either Hack or Petty in TC, so they started thinking about Petty and Hack again. After Hack's good outing vs. the Titans, they were leaning in his direction, but then he didn't play well at all vs the Lions, and Petty really started coming on in TC and had a very good outing vs the Lions, so they've been considering going with Petty or Hack as the starter.
Maybe it is a real competition. As much as I dont trust Bowles, and think he would go with McCown if he could, he needs to also keep Morton and Bates in his camp as well. He did say multiple times it would be a group decision, and as a first time OC, the worst thing for Morton is for McCown to win by default. With mediocre McCown they will just look like JAG coaches and placeholders for the next Jet coaching staff. They look like winners if they can make Petty or Hack into real QB's. So I think they may force the issue a bit. Bowles coaching career kindof rests with those guys and how much they can turn chicken shit into chicken salad.
If we fired Bowles and hired a new coach this year he would be able to start and Hack and have no worries. Bowles is not in that position and you can't blame for trying to win some games because the future is now for him and the coaches.McCown is starting week 3 pre season and week 1 regular season. After week 2 pre season the backup qb is up in the air and since McCown is gonna play most of the game this weeks practices are gonna determine who gets to come in for McCown and maybe starts week 4. I thought Petty looked in control last week. That said, if Mccown does not start on Saturday I have no idea what Bowles is up to I am not giving up on hack regardless. He was messed up when we drafted him and last year with our so called QB coach and coordinator was a waste so this year is the first time he's had good coaching since his first year in college. We are gonna have to find qb if he does not play and shine but that does not mean he has no chance to be good. Got a great arm, good build, seems bright and a nice kid. Hope we are patient with him.
Bowels and Co. most likely planned to start McCown from the get go which explains why he got way more first team reps when compared to Hack and Petty, then the Tennessee game happened. They liked what they saw from Hack, and decided to increase his reps in an effort to accelerate his growth as a QB, to see if he could start week one vs. Buffalo. Then he shit the bed vs. Detroit and Petty played well, which is leading to them using this 3rd game to see whether or not they can roll with either Hack or Petty as the week one starter. I don't think they plan on starting McCown, if they did he'd be getting way more reps than he is right now (which is virtually zero). I believe that when they signed McCown they thought of him as an insurance policy in case of injury, which with this train wreck that is the Jets O-Line it is more than possible. They will have either Hack and Petty start with the other as the backup. I hope.
Seems silly to worry about who is going to be the opening day starter when the O-line situation dictates that all three of these guys will be on IR by mid-season. The opening day starter will just be the first man down......
