The New York Jets have spent a lot of money this off-season…On buying meals for free agents. One of those meals have finally lead to a contract agreement, when the Jets announced the signing of free agent quarterback Josh McCown on Monday evening (3/20/17). Josh McCown is the perfect signing for the go-nowhere Jets, and here is why…
McCown has bounced around the league, having been part of 7 teams before his Jets career even begins. The Journeyman has only played in 13 games over the past two seasons, but has thrown for 18 touchdowns and 10 interceptions over that time in Cleveland. The direction the Jets are planning on taking is pretty clear now with this signing. As of now, we don’t know what role McCown will play in the Jets organization, and we won’t believe the Jets when they tell us. The Jets are in a complete rebuild, that part is clear. Prior to this signing I was going to publish a piece about how Christian Hackenberg should be the Jets starting quarterback in 2017, and I still believe that now. Josh McCown is just good enough to teach Bryce Petty and Christian Hackenberg a thing or two, and bad enough to still lose games like the Jets need to do this season. The Jets fans have been starved for a franchise quarterback since……well forever. Nobody on their roster is that guy and neither is anyone coming out in the draft this year. Will some of these 2017 prospects be better than what they have now? Absolutely. However in my opinion, none of these draft prospects are franchise caliber quarterbacks. Not this year. In my first mock draft, the Jets had the opportunity to select any of the quarterbacks in the class and I passed on all of them.
What the organization needs to do, is have an open “competition” between McCown, Petty and Hackenberg in training camp. Open enough to where Hackenberg wins the job, and keeps it unless he’s injured. What I love about this signing is that even if McCown is the starting quarterback, he will get injured early enough to where they will have to go with one of the kids. Jets fans have seen Petty already, and it wasn’t pretty. They messed up last year when the season was already a bust and they failed to play Hackenberg at all during the final few weeks of the season. We have all heard it before:” Hackenberg is (expletive)terrible” , “what a waste of a 2nd round pick” etc etc. All might be true and probably are. But the second quote is what gets me. He was a 2nd round pick. Someone in that organization saw something enough to warrant that selection. They NEED to play him to at least see what’s there, if anything is there. What’s the worst that can happen? They lose every game? Isn’t that what the organization is, or at least should be looking to do? And perhaps, just maybe, Hackenberg shows you something. Maybe the same thing that had him pegged as the “top quarterback” of 2016 draft, shortly after the 2015 draft ended. Almost in the same way that Sam Darnold (USC) has been touted this year.
The Jets need to lose in 2017. A lot. There is no guarantee that Sam Darnold even enters the draft after the season, or that he would want to play for the team with the #1 overall pick. Remember when the Jets had the #1 overall pick in 1996? There was a pretty good quarterback over at Tennessee named Peyton Manning that would’ve been the their guy. Well, his dad didn’t want him to play for the Jets (its a longer story than that) so he went back to school. A similar stunt was pulled with the Chargers when younger brother Eli entered the draft
Bottom line is this: They need to see what is there with Christian Hackenberg, otherwise it will be a total waste of a pick. If he plays and is terrible, then well, they missed. It happens all the time in the NFL. The team needs a franchise quarterback. I strongly believe that guy is still in college, and will be in the 2018 draft. It may not be Sam Darnold. It could be Josh Rosen (UCLA) or Josh Allen (Wyoming), but the 2018 quarterback draft class consists of players that could be franchise players. Whether he plays, sits, or teaches, Josh McCown is the perfect veteran quarterback to help the Jets get to their franchise quarterback in the 2018 draft.
**Thoughts and opinions are solely my own.
