SECOND THOUGHT ON GENO
Smith, not Petty, will be backup QB vs. Giants
RYAN Fitzpatrick is expected to play at least two quarters with the other starters in the Jets’ third preseason game, but read what you will into the planned No.2 quarterback this Saturday against the Giants.
“Geno (Smith),” head coach Todd Bowles declared Wednesday when pressed about which of the Jets’ four quarterbacks in camp will follow Fitzpatrick against Big Blue.
Bowles’ designation of Smith as Fitzpatrick’s backup this weekend wasn’t particularly new, but it certainly can be taken as an indication that second-year signal caller Bryce Petty hasn’t done enough in training camp or the first two preseason games to surpass Smith on the depth chart.
“You have to look at it all the same, because you don’t want to have a letdown, you don’t want to have a mental letdown. It’s all the same to me,” Smith said after practice in Florham Park. “Every single rep counts, every single play you get in practice or in the games count. You always have to have that mentality so things don’t change no matter what the situation is. It’s just going out there, execute and make the right reads.”
Fitzpatrick, who threw for 3,905 yards and a franchise record 31 touchdowns last season, ended a summer-long contract stalemate by agreeing to a one-year deal worth $12 million on the eve of training camp.
“Obviously, I want Fitz to play quite a bit,” Bowles said. “Depending on how the offense goes, it’s hard to get three quarterbacks in in the second half. I’ll try to if everything goes right, but we really do want to try to get all of them in the game.”
Smith, the former starter now in his fourth season with the Jets, was 6-for-13 for 47 yards with an interception last week against Washington. Petty, the Jets’ fourth-round pick last year out of Baylor’s spread offense, played well in the second half in the preseason win, throwing for 246 yards and two touchdowns.
“He’s a hard-working kid so he’s doing everything he can to pick up on all the little subtleties on what you need to do as a quarterback,” Jets QB coach Kevin Patullo said of Petty before practice. “There’s nothing particular. You can just tell he’s growing overall. His whole picture is getting cleaner . ... Just as a whole, it’s all growing. You could tell in the spring, it was getting cleaner and then as time goes, you can just feel it.
“He’s understanding more. His questions are better. What he sees in the film room is better, and you can tell it’s just translating to the field a little bit cleaner. He knows there’s still stuff he needs to work on and they all do … He understands what’s good and bad and what he needs to focus on. It’s getting better. With everything, it’s reps.”
Bowles wouldn’t say how much Petty or second-round pick Christian Hackenberg, who hasn’t appeared in either of the first two games, will play against the Giants.
The third preseason game generally is the one in which most of the starters play significant minutes before sitting out altogether or playing sparingly in the finale.
“It’s not a dress rehearsal, because the regular season is 10 times more amped up than this. It’s a completely different deal,” Bowles said. “... But you do want to see some chemistry and cohesiveness.”