Forgotten Petty does not lack for confidence
Whenever the Jets’ quarterback competition is discussed, it seems like people talk about Josh McCown, the veteran expected to start the season, Christian Hacken berg, the high draft pick the organization needs to make a decision on, and then they get to Bryce Petty — the afterthought.
Petty, in his third year out of Baylor, appears to be the long shot to win the starting quarterback job.
Not that Petty feels that way.
“I don’t feel like No. 3,” Petty said Tuesday after the Jets’ fourth OTA practice. “I don’t think Hack feels like he’s No. 3. I don’t think Josh feels like he’s No. 3, or any of the above. We’re just trying to get better as a unit and as a group to get to where we want to be in the season. I don’t read headlines. I don’t do stuff like that. I’m just focused on coming in here and being better every day.”
Petty is the only one of the three who ever has played a game at quarterback for the Jets, never mind start. He played in six games last year, starting four. He completed 56.4 percent of his passes for 809 yards, three touchdowns and seven interceptions.
There were some good moments for Petty, who led the team to a win in San Francisco, and some bad moments, like getting crushed by the Dolphins’ Nd a mu kong Suh and Cameron Wake. He said he believes the experience of those games has helped him this year, though, as he enters this competition for the starting job.
“I have the confidence now that, ‘Hey, I can play this game.’ I think that’s a big thing,” Petty said. “I think just going through that process. Sometimes you kind of make it bigger than it is. Some guys need experience to build that confidence. I think that’s kind of what I needed to see that, ‘Hey, I can see the rush. I can see the defense. I can make throws. I can throw touchdowns,’ and things like that. That’s part of growing up and maturing, and maturing in this league as well.”
The hit Petty absorbed from Suh and Wa k e might be the most indelible image of the 2016 Jets season. Everything went wrong on the play, and Petty ended up getting crushed. He was knocked out of the game on the hit, but has managed to laugh about it since.
Petty made a joke on Twitter in March about holding a moment of silence every time he eats a sandwich because of the hit. On Tuesday, he said he hopes to get the duo to sign a photo of the tackle and hang it in his home so his future children know how tough he is.
“If I can survive a hit from those two guys, I think I’m going to be all right,” Petty said.
On a serious note, that was one of two games Petty started that he did not finish because of injury. Against the Patriots the next week, he injured his left shoulder trying to make a tackle. The injury ended his season and required surgery. The injuries are a source of frustration for Petty.
“It’s tough because I’m not normally a guy that gets hurt,” he said. “I put a lot of that on myself. As a quarterback, you’ve got to be out there, and I wanted to be out there. It was tough that hey, you have four starts and that was an opportunity for me to show them what they have and what I can do. It didn’t work out that way. God’s got a plan with all that stuff, so I’ll learn from it.”
Coach Todd Bowles said Tuesday the game should be slowing down for Petty after last year’s experience.
“He had a lot to learn,” Bowles said. “When you put a guy in there for the last four games of the year and those are his first four games after being in the league a year and not having played, it’s going to be tough on him. There’s going to be some tough things. Obviously, the game should slow down for him some, having played as far as an anxiety thing of being a young player. Mentally, he’s going to have a lot to learn. It’s going to be different every week, but I think he saw a lot of things he wouldn’t normally see standing on the sideline.”