Jets do Petty like that, cut QB
The Jets parted ways with one member of their crowded quarterback room Thursday as we kick off the Sam Darnold Era.
The Daily News first reported Thursday that Gang Green will be cutting Bryce Petty, who finished last season as the starter. Petty, who will turn 27 this summer, was scheduled to make $705,000 in the final year of his rookie contract. Todd Bowles now has four quarterbacks on the roster with Josh McCown, Teddy Bridgewater, Christian Hackenberg and Darnold.
The Jets could conceivably hold on to all four signal callers before making a decision to cut the room down to three later this summer. Gang Green could trade a quarterback in training camp/preseason to a desperate team if an injury materializes (see: EaglesVikings trade involving Sam Bradford and Bridgewater in 2016).
Petty finished 1-6 as a starter with a 53.1 career completion rate, four touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He lost all three of his starts late last year after Josh McCown suffered a season-ending hand injury.
“You can’t get discouraged,” Petty said after a Week 16 loss to the Chargers. “This isn’t discouraged. This is frustration. This is a process. People can say what they want to say. You learn every time you get out there…. It’s there. I promise you, I promise you, I promise you. It’s there.”
Petty will have to find a new home now. In some ways, it’s a credit to the Jets fourth-round pick in 2015 that he survived this long. He was on the roster bubble entering training camp in 2016 only to impress team brass with a standout preseason.
“Light it up? Hell yeah. That’s what I want to do,” Petty told the Daily News before the 2016 preseason that felt like his last audition. “I don’t want to make execution sound boring or sound lame. I want to go in there and Brett Favre it. Just do amazing things. That’s the way I feel you kind of have to be. There’s got to be some inspiring plays in there and some things that make them say, ‘Wow! Did you see Bryce?’ That’s what I want them to say, (but) I don’t want to play outside of the execution and try to (force) things. Just let things work, but at the same time, I want to ball out, for sure.”
Petty was also marginalized early in training camp last summer only to out-play Hackenberg in the preseason to earn the No. 2 quarterback job. However, durability has been a concern. Petty dealt with shoulder and knee injuries that caused him to miss time in the past couple years.
Hackenberg’s future with the team remains in doubt as well. If Bridgewater, who is on track – if not slightly ahead of schedule – in his knee rehab proves himself this summer, the Jets could cut Hackenberg. Then again, they could trade Bridgewater, who signed a one-year, $6 million deal, to a desperate team in training camp or the preseason. hours earlier was lifted due to a clerical error by the Broward County court. Anderson’s attorney, Ed O’Donnell, told the Daily News that the miscommunication was a result of a change from the circuit court to the county court.
After a felony charge of threatening harm to a public servant was dropped last month, Anderson’s case was moved to county court and issued a new case number, which prompted the confusion. O’Donnell, Anderson and even the prosecuting attorney were not advised of a hearing earlier this week. A new procedural hearing is scheduled for July 19.
“Robby did not do anything wrong,” O’Donnell told The News Wednesday. “It’s not like he just said, ‘No, I’m not going to court.’ Believe me. I didn’t go to court, either. Because nobody knew to be there.”
Anderson faces a misdemeanor reckless driving charge and four additional traffic violations in connection to his January arrest.
Jets CEO Christopher Johnson has been one of Anderson’s biggest supporters over the past few months. “I’m really hopeful that Robby will put this kind of thing behind him,” Johnson said at the annual league meeting in March. “And that he will be the kind of person — forget about his playing … he’s an incredible football player — that he’ll be the kind of person all around that will make people proud to wear a No. 11 jersey.” Anderson is subject to league discipline for this incident and an arrest at a Florida Festival last summer.