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Here are some of my big picture thoughts about the Jets following their three-day minicamp that wrapped up on Thursday. Here goes . . .
Josh McCown should be the Jets’ quarterback, at least to start the season. He’s much more decisive and accurate that Christian Hackenberg and Bryce Petty.
In fairness to Hackenberg and Petty, they had a new offense thrown at them this off-season, which his really tough on young quarterbacks. It’s not ideal for the develop of young quarterbacks to have them learn an entire system, and then throw another playbook at them, shortly thereafter.
And let’s keep in mind that Hackenberg is still only 22-year-old. Just turned 22 on February 14. What is the rush? What is the big deal if he waits another year, and is actually developed the old-fashioned way? Or maybe come in later in the year if the Jet fall out of wildcard contention. Honestly, every team should at least be in wild card contention for ¾ of the season. The league isn’t that great, and has so many rules set-up for competitive balance.
McCown also makes much quicker decisions with the ball than Hackenberg and Petty. He’s a great leader as well.
Look, I’m not putting McCown in Canton, but I watched every minute of every spring practice. They can talk about the competition thing all he wants, but you have to be clueless to watch the proceedings this spring, and not realize McCown should be the quarterback in Week One.
Staying on the offensive side of the ball, tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins and wide receiver Robby Anderson both had strong minicamps, and were very hard to cover for Jets defenders. Seferian-Jenkins looked Jimmy Graham-like, and Anderson has clearly improved his route-running under the watchful eyes of his position coach Karl Dorrell and the Jets’ new offensive coordinator, John Morton, a long time NFL receivers coach, who also played the position in NFL Europe. These two players seemed poised for big seasons in 2017.
Another observation from the spring is that Jamal Adams is the real deal. His instincts and leadership skills are off-the-charts. Barring injury, this guy should be a rookie-of-the-year candidate.
And he might need to him to hold up in coverage for a long time on some plays. I’m still not seeing much of an edge pass rush from Gang Green.
Now the interior rush is good with Mo Wilkerson, Leonard Williams and Sheldon Richardson, but the bread-and-butter of a 3-4 defense is getting edge pressure, and that was lacking this spring.
One last observation about the spring practices. The Jets seem like a much more unified team than last year, a much happier team than last year, a more spirited team than last year. One reason for that are some of the off-season cuts, but also, Jets coach Todd Bowles added a lot of new fiery assistants who have added to the team’s spirit, and that is making a difference as well.
June 16, 2017
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