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Josh McCown: Jets aren’t in rebuilding mode

Josh McCown

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, New York Jets quarterback Josh McCown is convincing himself and his teammates that the franchise is not in rebuilding mode.

McCown, having seen this movie more than once, is the perfect guy to have brought on board during this “not-rebuilding” year. He’s a consummate professional who’s never been afraid to weather a difficult circumstance. He’s labored to a career 18-42 record playing with teams like the Arizona Cardinals, Detroit Lions, Oakland Raiders, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns when those teams weren’t winning.

Appearing on PFT Live, McCown discussed the mindset he and his teammates must take as they prepare for what is surely going to be another brutal year of losing.

“In an organization, you have different facets,” McCown said, per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. “And obviously the owner kind of sets the tone and the pace in which he wants the organization to go, because he’s the owner. And then you have management and the coaches and the players.”

McCown’s comment regarding the owner setting the tone are in response to Woody Johnson’s recent comments which indicate the Jets are content to view 2017 as a rebuilding year. Johnson wants the Jets to give their young quarterbacks — Bryce Petty and Christian Hackenberg — a chance to play more this upcoming season.

This has pretty much been the organization’s stance since McCown was brought on board and general manager Mike Maccagnan wouldn’t name him the starter.

All that aside, McCown isn’t letting any of this get him, or his teammates, down.

“From a player level, once they set that vision in regards to how they view things, when you’re in it in the locker room, your mindset’s never like, ‘Hey, this is a rebuilding year, so let’s not work as hard or let’s not do this or let’s not do that.’ As competitors, your mindset is to go win every game and go play as hard as you can. So you don’t really look at it that way, and so how they view it as they take a wider vision and wider view of the future for them, that’s how they view it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But for us as players, our job, what we get paid to do is to go out and play as hard as we can, prepare ourselves and go compete to win every football game. So that’s the mindset, and the vibe has been great so far these first three weeks. . . . Very positive, very upbeat.”

Despite Johnson’s desire to get his young guns onto the field, it’s hard to imagine either of them being ready to do much of anything positive based on what we’ve seen and heard thus far.

It seems far more likely head coach Todd Bowles and offensive coordinator John Morton will be more comfortable letting McCown run the offense. Their jobs are on the line, after all, and the Jets have a defense that has the potential to do some really good things.

But if we’re being honest, it won’t matter if it’s McCown, Petty, Hackenberg or Joe Namath himself out there behind center. The Jets aren’t going to win many games in 2017. They got rid of way too many good, veteran players. And they most certainly are rebuilding, whether the players want to admit it or not.

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