Jets Sack Titans; Win Preseason Opener

The New York Jets scored on their first drive of the night as Josh McCown (3 / 4 – 72 yards, 1 TD) connected with Robby Anderson on a long pass inside the 5 yard line. Two plays later McCown completed a short pass to Charone Peake for the Jets only touchdown of the game.

In the words of the immortal Warner Wolf, turn your sets off there folks. The Jets defense only allowed a field goal on the day and that meant a 7 – 3 victory for the Jets in the preseason opener.

This was audition day for Christian Hackenberg. He threw more than double the amount of passes as Josh McCown and Bryce Petty combined. It was a good first step (a baby step) for Hackenberg who was 18 of 25 on the day for 127 yards on the day. With a 5.1 yard average in the air the game plan was very conservative. You aren’t going to win many games being that conservative but the goal seemed to be confidence building for the young QB. There were a few drops and penalties but overall Christian Hackenberg showed good accuracy.

Despite the promise of an open competition the plan that Todd Bowles and John Morton have at QB seems to have involves:

• Geting Josh McCown ready to start the season at the top of the depth chart. He has only played in more than 10 games twice in 12 seasons. He has never played in 16 games in a single season. So the odds seem long that McCown will hold on to the job.
• Getting Christian Hackenberg ready to start at some point this season. They are bringing him along slowly but at some point the training wheels will have to come off.
• Getting Bryce Petty ready to hold a clip board. The Jets seem to have their mind made up on Petty who saw time behind the 3rd string offensive line on Saturday night at Metlife Stadium.

The Jets had 15 players catch passes against the Titans. Robby Anderson had almost half the yards (3 / 73).

The story of the day was the defense. They sacked the Titans QB 8 times. The first team defense looked good with Leonard Williams getting an early sack. Jordan Jenkins had 4 tackles during the game.

Frankie Hammond and Lucky Whitehead both split kickoff and punt return duties.

Punter Lachlan Edwards struggled with some shaky punts. Overall he had a 41.9 yard average but it wasn’t a good night for the Jets 2nd year punter. Chandler Catanzaro missed the only field goal attempt of the night. It was a long won from 55 yards out, but even though his kick had the leg, he was wide left by a wide margin.

Preseason games are meaningless, but when you have a young team it is good to walk away with a win. They have to work on the running game and get Matt Forte and Bilal Powell on the field; both players missed this game. Next up the Jet travel to Detroit to take on the Lions on Saturday night August 19th.