NFL

9 NFL Veterans Whose Jobs Are Safe From 2017 Rookies

Joe Redemann  —  @TheIDPGuy May 12th, 2017
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​Josh McCown

A really fun game to play is “How many years has Josh McCown been an average or better quarterback?” The answer is a disappointing “one”, but it prompts another important and baffling question: Why are NFL teams like the New York Jets still hustling out to pay him to start for them, four years after his age-34 “breakout” has proven to be more mirage than magic?

For instance, McCown posted a Passing NEP per drop back rate of 0.00 last year, the ninth-lowest among the 39 passers to drop back at least 100 times in 2016. That's Ryan Fitzpatrick and Brock Osweiler bad.

But the Jets didn’t draft a passer this year. Instead they go into the 2017 season with McCown as the starter and 2016 second-round selection Christian Hackenberg -- who was entrusted with zero starts and zero snaps during last year’s injury-riddled debacle -- as the quarterback of the future. McCown gets another year to be mediocre for a few hundred drop backs, and Hackenberg remains (bizarrely) the long-term option here.

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