Bowles says QB job is open competition

FLORHAM PARK » Picking a starting quarterback is no snap decision for Todd Bowles.

The Jets coach has a journeyman veteran in Josh McCown and two inexperienced youngsters in Bryce Petty and Christian Hackenberg from which to choose.

And with the team’s three-day minicamp completed, there’s still no clear-cut answer to the biggest question surrounding the franchise.

“I don’t look at anybody as the front-runner,” Bowles said Thursday when asked if McCown is ahead of the others in the competition. “I’ll just wait until training camp comes and we’ll sort it out then.”

The 37-year-old McCown is entering his 15th season in the NFL and is on his 10th team in the league. He has been a starter in some places, a backup in others — and even both at times.

When he signed a one-year, $6 million contract with the Jets in March, it was largely assumed he would be the likely starter at Buffalo on Sept. 10 in the season opener. That still might be the case, of course, but Bowles isn’t making any declarations at this point in the offseason. “It’s a competition,” he insisted. That means McCown, Petty and Hackenberg are all still in the running to be under center in Week 1. Bowles said the snaps were nearly equally distributed throughout the spring as the three quarterbacks took turns running new offensive coordinator John Morton’s West Coast-style offense and spent long hours with QBs coach Jeremy Bates.

“All three of us have done a really good job of owning it,” Petty said, “and Coach Bates has done a heck of a job preparing us.”