STATUS PENDING

Final 6 games will determine if Bowles returns for 4th season

AS BEN McAdoo’s seat across town has gotten hotter than the surface of the sun, the focus for much of the 2017 season has shifted off Jets coach Todd Bowles’ job status. That’s about to change. The final six games of the Jets’ season are all about Bowles and whether he should be back for a fourth season with the team in 2018. Bowles entered the season as Dead Coach Walking, with the expectation being that the Jets would be historically awful and he would be a casualty thrown overboard at the end of the year.

Then the Jets won some games. Then the Jets lost some games. Then the Jets played their best game of the season in prime time on a Thursday night against the Bills. Then the Jets played their worst game of the season Sunday at Tampa Bay.

All of it has left a huge question mark lingering about Bowles’ status. Should he stay or should he go?

My opinion has always been Bowles’ status would be determined by how the Jets finish the year. When Jets owner Christopher Johnson ponders what to do about Bowles at the conclusion of the Jets’ season on New Year’s Eve, what will be on his mind will be what he just saw. Owners have recency bias just like fans. That three-game winning streak in late Septemberearly October? That was nice, but no one is going to be thinking about that at the end of December. The same way the ups and downs of the past few weeks will be a memory by then.

What will be fresh in Johnson’s mind is what happens when the Jets return from the bye. They have six games left — three at home, three on the road. They face some of the best teams in football with the Panthers, Chiefs, Saints and Patriots on the schedule. How they perform will determine Bowles’ fate.

Bowles has one year remaining on his contract. NFL coaches generally do not coach in lameduck situations. That means the Jets either will extend Bowles by a year or show him the door.

Johnson and his brother, Woody, before him have said this year Bowles will be judged on progress, not wins and losses. I believe them, but I also think you can only have so many “good losses.” There are going to have to be a few wins mixed in down the stretch for Bowles to survive.

What Bowles can’t have is more games like the one Sunday against the Buccaneers, when he admitted his team did not show up. That was the first time these Jets looked like that this year. So give him a mulligan. But he does not get two.

Johnson will be looking for signs that the arrow is pointing up at the end of this season. The Jets have had some positive developments for the future this year with the emergence of young players like Jamal Adams, Marcus Maye and Robby Anderson. Darron Lee and Jordan Jenkins have also shown prom- ise in recent weeks. Bowles needs more of that to finish the season.

At 4-6, you can look at the Jets several different ways. You can see them as overachievers because of the low expectations entering the year. Or you can look at this as another year without a playoff appearance — the seventh straight for the Jets, the third under Bowles — and consider that a failure in the big picture.

When the Jets return from their bye to face the Panthers next week, Bowles will be under the microscope. If things go well, he could be getting ready for an offseason of big decisions for the Jets on New Year’s Day. If things go poorly, he could be cleaning out his desk.