MCCOWN GETS UP AGAIN
Jets’ starter is hurt but survives finale
Todd Bowles played with fire and only narrowly avoided disaster.
With Josh McCown in need of work after spending most of this preseason riding the bench, Bowles — in an unconventional move — opted to start his 38-year-old quarterback in the Jets’ fourth and final exhibition game Thursday night against the Eagles at MetLife Stadium.
Naturally, the decision backfired. On the second series of a 16-10 Jets victory, McCown — who was named the starter on Monday — went down after taking a crushing hit from backup Eagles defensive lineman Joe Walker. He left the game for one play, but returned to finish the drive.
McCown said after the game he simply got the wind knocked out of him. Walker drove his helmet into an unpadded area of McCown’s midsection.
“He just caught me right in the bad spot,” McCown said. “Thankfully that was it. It was a good kind of first hit, always looking to get those over with. So nothing major.”
On the play, the seventh offensive snap of the game for the Jets, McCown dropped back to pass, facing a first-and-10. He floated a throw over the middle to tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins, who hauled in the reception and sprinted into open space for a gain of 20 yards.
Just after releasing the throw, though, McCown was drilled in the ribs by Walker. As SeferianJenkins scampered downfield, McCown stayed on the turf, rolling in pain. The signal-caller later rose to one knee and attempted to jog off the field, but as he approached the Jets sideline, he dropped to his knee again. Trainers rushed to McCown and tended to the quarterback for several minutes before he eventually left the game.
“You don’t like your quarterback getting hit, but football is football,” Bowles said. “Whether it’s Week 1 (of the regular season) or Week 4 of the preseason, you get hurt, you get hurt. That’s kind of the game we play.”
Second-year man Christian Hackenberg — who is battling with Bryce Petty for the backup job — replaced McCown for the one play, a handoff that resulted in a holding penalty on center Wesley Johnson. McCown checked back in for the next snap. Petty didn’t play in the contest because of a Grade 1 MCL sprain he suffered Saturday against the Giants.
McCown said he dropped to a knee the second time to give Hackenberg “a chance to warm up.”
“Having been in those shoes,” McCown said, “you appreciate if the guy will take a knee for a second and let you throw a few balls.”
After returning to the field, McCown nearly threw an interception to Eagles cornerback Jaylen Watkins, who dropped a sure-fire pick-6 near the right sideline.
McCown eventually led the Jets into the red zone after running back Bilal Powell glided 20 yards on a perfectly executed screen pass. But McCown failed to find the end zone. Chandler Catanzaro connected on a 28-yard field goal to cap the drive and open scoring.
McCown left the game for good after the series. He finished 6 of 8 passing for 57 yards.
“Obviously you want to finish drives with touchdowns,” said McCown, who went three-and-out in his opening series. “But the main thing for us was to go out there with that unit and just play with tempo — get in and out of the huddle, move fast, move the ball down the field. And so I think we were able to capture that in the second drive, and that’s good for us. That’ll give us some momentum and juice heading into next week.”
Losing McCown to injury would have been a worst-case scenario for the Jets. Bowles named McCown the starter this week largely because Petty and Hackenberg lack experience in offensive coordinator John Morton’s West Cost offense. But McCown had played just seven snaps this preseason before Thursday night, all of which came on a touchdown drive on the opening series against the Lions on Aug. 12. If McCown didn’t play in the preseason finale, he would have gone close to a month without taking a snap in live action.
Obviously, Bowles was determined to give McCown some playing time with the starting receivers and offensive line, who all played the first two series of the contest.
However, it nearly cost him his starting quarterback.
“You only get better at football by playing football,” Bowles said. “So we put them out there.”