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John Morton was asked about Josh McCown being a mentor to Christian Hackenberg and Bryce Petty. Here is what he had to say . . .
“I don’t want to put it all on him,” Morton said. “I think the coaches, that is our responsibility to be leaders and to help all of our players and coach them and give them guidance. I think that’s important.”
That is exactly right.
The McCown mentor things is so overblown.
Just like Mark Brunell mentoring Mark Sanchez and David Garrard mentoring Geno Smith was overblown.
Honestly, did any of you see any tangible impact that Brunell had on Sanchez or Garrard had on Smith. And that isn’t a shot at Brunell or Garrard. It’s more a shot at the veteran QB mentor concept.
There is very little a veteran QB can do to make a young QB appreciably better. Obviously there are small things here and there the “mentor” can help the youngsters with, but the impact is generally minimal at best.
And the McCown situation isn’t exactly the same as Brunell and Garrard. McCown is competing to start for the Jets. Brunell and Garrard were backups who were given virtually no chance at starting, sans injury. None.
So McCown’s main focus is on being the starter. That isn’t to say he’s not trying to help Hackenberg and Petty. He is. But unlike Brunell/Garrard who were like full-time mentors, this guy has a lot more on his plate. His main job in the Jets’ Tuesday practice was to run the first-team offense.
Morton is right. It’s the job of coaches (like Morton and QB coach Jeremy Bates) to mentor and coach Hackenberg and Petty.
And according to Adam Schefter, Bates is doing a great job tutoring Hackenberg.
“Everybody is overlooking the Jets’ biggest quarterback acquisition this offseason, with that being Jeremy Bates,” Schefter said on the Rich Eisen Show. “Jeremy Bates is a quarterback guru, and I think he can do a lot of good for Christian Hackenberg. If there is anybody that can revive or rescue his career that would be the guy and I think that they are optimistic.”
There was a tweet from Schefter – “One interesting item to pop up this spring: Jets are pleased with the way QB Christian Hackenberg has looked. The Jeremy Bates effect.”
Whenever I here Schefter say stuff like this, pumping up a coach, I wonder if there a source angle to this. I will leave it at that.
Right now, it’s way too early to see any tangible results of Bates work with Hackenberg.
And I doubt over the course of the next six months, if we’ll see much of an impact of McCown on Hackenberg and Petty.
I’m not saying they won’t improve. I’m not saying that at all.
But that is up to Schefter’s QB guru and Morton, not McCown.
McCown’s mission is to go out this spring and summer and become the Jets’ starting quarterback.
And along the way if he can help the Jets’ young quarterbacks, that is gravy.
May 25, 2017
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