Jets Q&A: Who will be Josh McCown’s backup?
New York Jets quarterback Josh McCown (15) and Christian Hackenberg (5) take the field before a game against the Buffalo Bills Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017, in Orchard Park, N.Y. Credit: AP / Adrian Kraus
Who’s the backup quarterback, anyway?
Christian Hackenberg, but that could change. There was some thought that Bryce Petty, who suffered a knee injury in the preseason, might have been too hurt to play, but Petty himself put that notion to rest after the game. Todd Bowles said that choosing Hackenberg was a coaching decision. “It could change,” he said. “It will probably change all the time.”
Why did Bowles punt with four minutes left and the Jets facing a two-score deficit?
“We thought we could get field position and we had three timeouts, and we felt we could stop them and get the ball back. It’s as simple as that,” he said. “We stopped them before and we would have had the field position. Had we went for it on fourth and not gotten it and they got the ball back, by the time they would have punted with the three timeouts, we would have been backed up.”
What’s it like defending LeSean McCoy?
Not a whole lot of fun. “It’s tough,” Muhammad Wilkerson said. “But then when he hits you with those one or two plays and it’s like you know what’s coming and it happens, you get mad.”
OK, so everyone knows McCoy is trouble, but how come Tyrod Taylor gave the Jets’ defense that much trouble?
Missed assignments and lack of discipline don’t help with a running threat like Taylor. “It’s hard,” Leonard Williams said. “Even when we’re pass rushing, sometimes we can’t freestyle too much, we can’t stay too much on the edge, we have to make sure we collapse the pocket. It changes the way we rush and it changed the way we play the run game.”
Why did the Jets throw so much in the first half? Don’t they know they’re bad at that?
Because the Bills are pretty good up front. They “came in with a game plan, some of the things we tried to exploit and attack, and it didn’t work out for us,” Bowles said. “But we were in the game.”
Is Josh McCown to blame for the offense?
Not completely. At least Bowles doesn’t seem to think so. “He did OK,” he said. “We’ve got to get some more help. We couldn’t run it consistently and we didn’t throw the ball consistently. [We] had a lot of missed assignments over there that went unknown and we’ve got to clean that up, too.”
Is one week of practice long enough for the new faces on offense?
McCown seemed to think it worked out OK. Jermaine Kearse already was his favorite target and Will Tye, he said, “was effective.”
He added, “We didn’t have any delay of games. We didn’t have any problems with that . . . [The younger guys] handle all of this well considering all the moving parts we have because of personnel.”
Where was Jeremy Kerley?
Inactive. Bowles said he didn’t have enough plays under his belt to get in the game.
How’s Eric Tomlinson? And Bruce Carter?
No idea. They’re undergoing tests and we might know more Monday.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
