The Jets have made a sharp turn toward youth across their roster this offseason with one big exception.
They signed quarterback Josh McCown, who turns 38 next month, to join Bryce Petty and Christian Hackenberg in a competition for the Week One starting job. The offseason work has pointed toward McCown winning that competition, which led to a question for Todd Bowles about why the position is an exception from what Bowles called “a younger movement.”
“Even when you go to kindergarten, somebody has to be the teacher,” Bowles said in comments distributed by the team. “You’re not going to have everybody young. You’re going to have the majority of the team young, [but] you’re not going to have everybody young. You’re going to have some guys on your team that have played some years. It is not going to be a total washout like [they’re] all freshman coming into college, but the majority of them are young and then the other majority can help in other ways, so it’s a fine line between choosing all young and picking which guys to or not to get rid of.”
Bowles said that McCown isn’t ahead of the other players at this point, but the team doesn’t have many options if they want to have any teachers overseeing the toddlers when the bell rings in September.