The New York Jets fumbled the quarterback competition in preseason. That ineptitude has continued into the regular season.
Bryce Petty is a career backup quarterback at best. Re-read that several times New York Jets fans because it’s true. While I thought maybe that changed over the preseason, it didn’t. That was all but confirmed with head coach Todd Bowles’ comments after the game per NewYorkJets.com:
“Bryce Petty was healthy, but Christian Hackenberg is our backup quarterback”
Reporter: Could that change?
“I’m sure it can.”
It doesn’t really matter who performed better (that was Petty) in the preseason. Every quarterback is going to end up playing at some point this year. Hackenberg is obviously higher on the totem pole, perhaps not due to his play on the field, but due to his high draft pick.
This guy was a second round pick and he’s yet to throw a regular season pass. The Jets are going to find out what he has sooner or later. They tried for the sooner part, but Hackenberg apparently couldn’t show enough in the offseason or preseason action.
But don’t blame the Jets for lack of persistence. This MCL sprain for Petty is a convenient excuse to keep him third in the rotation. If they truly believed in Petty at all, they wouldn’t have brought in a Josh McCown type.
So how’d the Jets look offensively Week 1?
Atrocious.
They were dominated in:
- Time of possession
- Total yards
- First downs
- Yards per play
- Total plays
- Rushing yards
You get the picture. Things weren’t pretty, although it wasn’t all bad. Per Pro Football Focus analytics, the Jets offensive line performed pretty well, all things considered:
- Brandon Shell (80.1 overall grade) looked superb in pass protection — grading out as the top offensive player for the Jets. Across his 42 pass block snaps, he surrendered only 1 pressure (a QB hurry).
- LG James Carpenter was also sound in pass protection against Buffalo. Across 42 pass block snaps, he allowed just 1 pressure (a QB hurry). The Jets OL as a whole surrendered 4 pressures all game — Josh McCown‘s pressure rate was a mere 17.5 percent. The highest for the 1 p.m. ET slate of games was 46.3 percent.
The only real question, in terms of what the Jets can control, is play calling. McCown throwing the pigskin nearly 40 times isn’t a winning recipe with this bunch.
The overreaction over Week 1 says to fire Bowles on the spot. The harsh reality is he’s going to be the guy until the end of the season. His clock-management skills again came into question, punting with four minutes to go down two scores. But for the tanking crowd, Bowles is doing everything according to plan.
