Petty Beginning to Force Bowles’ Hand?

Training camp for the 2017 Jets season is barely a couple of weeks old, but it looks like a bit of a controversy is brewing in the Jets 3-man quarterback competition.

In the (very) early going, Josh McCown, Christian Hackenberg and Bryce Petty were all in the same ballpark in terms of reps and pass attempts during team periods.  It wasn’t long though before Petty saw his attempts dip to single digits, leading many to assume he was being discarded.

Fast forward to this week, and Petty may be playing himself into a position in which Todd Bowles has no choice but to get his workload on par with McCown and Hackenberg.

Say what you will about experience, draft slots and expectations, Petty has thrown all of that aside while outplaying McCown and Hackenberg in each of the past two practices.

According to Rich Cimini of ESPN New York, over the past two days, McCown has completed 14 of 20 passes (70%), the vast majority of which have been conservative passes inside of 20 yards. Hackenberg is 16-32 (50%) and Petty has connected on 16 of 25 attempts (64%).

It’s time for Bryce Petty to be taken seriously as a contender for the Jets starting QB job.

Most impressive has been Petty’s deep ball accuracy, as he’s thrown a pair of long TD’s, one of which came on the final throw of a perfect 5-5 two minute drill in which he connected on five different routes. Two of which were on the right side of the field, one in the middle of the field and two more to the left.  It was a variety of receivers, routes and directions.

So while nobody is saying that the past two days are enough to vault Petty to the top of the depth chart, it would be borderline criminal at this point if he isn’t seeing increased reps on a more regular basis.

Glenn Naughton

Glenn was Born in the Bronx, New York and has followed the Jets religiously despite being stationed in several different countries and time zones around the world. He now resides in England and has been a JetNation member since 2005. Glenn will bleed green with the rest of us through the highs and lows.

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