As the Jets turn . . .

Morris County – Jets back at practice and the palace intrigue continues . . .

Jets left guard James Carpenter is injured. If he can’t play, there is a possibility the Jets will move Spencer Long to left guard, and start Jon Harrison at center. Playing guard, which Long has done in the past, will take shotgun snapping off the table for Long, something he has struggled with recently, in part, due to an injured middle finger on his right hand . . .

Josh McCown let lose a deep out to Chris Herndon on the left sideline that traveled about 40 yards in the air. On the NFL level, you need to be able to drive the deep out, and the 40-year-old QB can still do it. He can still “spin it” as they say . . .

Speaking McCown, he was the starter today in practice with Sam Darnold sidelined with a foot injury. It’s still to early to determine if Darnold will be able to play on Sunday. Monday practices don’t really mean anything as far as whether a guy will play on Sunday. Monday practices are pretty rare, and usually only take place coming out of a bye-week, or if you are playing on Thursday night. So guys not participating in practice, like Darnold and Carpenter, means very little in terms of Sunday. Practices later in the week mean a lot more . . .

I can’t tell you for sure that Todd Bowles is in trouble. Right now it’s mostly guesswork, but I did find the report from NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport interesting based on throwaway line late in the Sunday article. Rapoport made national NFL news on Sunday when he announced that Bowles has an “uphill battle” to keep his job. While some writers pointed out today that he was stating the obvious, this article was linked to all over the internet.

Late in the article, Rapoport wrote, “If Bowles is fired, he’s still expected to garner interest as a head coaching candidate and will surely get interviews.”

Insiders, in any sport, will often throw in these lines to throw their sources a bone. If Bowles gets fired by the Jets, it’s unlikely get a lot of interest as a NFL head coaching candidate in 2019. Maybe if he becomes a defensive coordinator somewhere and does great, he can re-emerge as a head coaching candidate. But if he does get fired by the Jets, to say he, “He’s still expected to garner interest as a head coaching candidate,” is Pollyanna thinking.

But insiders throw these lines out all the time to agents and sources to pay back a favor.

Now I don’t think Rapoport got this from Bowles, but it is possible it came from a rep.

And if that is the case, perhaps there is some credence to the story. If a coaches agent supplied Rapoport with this information, then the coach probably feels it’s an “uphill battle.”

I can assure you that Rapoport didn’t get the info from Chris Johnson or Mike Maccagnan. They don’t operate that way . . .

Some food for thought on the Bowles’ situation. Let’s say he is in trouble, who could give him a better chance to win some games, especially with their brutal schedule (New England twice, Green Bay and Houston), McCown or Darnold?

Clearly McCown. Why would a coach on the hot-seat, trying to get some wins down the stretch, want to play a raw rookie learning on the job? Unless the coach was assured before the season, that starting a rookie, which can lead to a lot of losses, would not hurt his job status. If Chris, Ira and Mike wanted to start the rookie, and he struggled, like most rookies do, it’s hard to entirely blame the rough season on Bowles. Hey, plenty of to criticize him for, like poor attention to detail on defense (blown coverages, gap control issues against the run), but he’s being forced to start a rookie QB, the struggled connected to that aren’t totally on him.

But if you were supposedly in trouble, who would you start?

November 19, 2018

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