When will Bryce Petty or Christian Hackenberg play?

The New York Jets have earned decent success so far this season. The big question is, when exactly would one of or even both of their young quarterbacks in Bryce Petty or Christian Hackenberg get an opportunity to start at some point this season?

At this point in time, the New York Jets are 3-3 heading into a Week 7 AFC East rivalry game against the Miami Dolphins. For what it’s worth, the Jets have overachieved so far this season as they’re a gritty group that plays hard and competes, regardless of the team they’re facing. Their quarterback situation is stable but isn’t anything great or even anything abysmal. It’s just enough to get by, for now.

There is, however, the big elephant in the room of what might be the possible scenarios that the Jets finally get a real glimpse of what their other quarterbacks can do. It’s no secret that the jury is still out on both Bryce Petty and Christian Hackenberg to determine their future careers with the Jets.

Petty played a handful of games last season before getting injured and didn’t exactly scream franchise quarterback. It was a small sample size and if the Jets want to move forward with him as “the guy” they need to be 100 percent certain he can have a supporting cast built around him for major success.

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Hackenberg, on the other hand, is a completely different story. He regressed tremendously this past summer as he was leading the quarterback competition of the Jets at one point. Then he simply made so many mental mistakes, it was clear that he was at least another year or two away from even being backup material.

Head coach Todd Bowles has always been vocal so far in his tenure with the Jets of being in the business of winning football games. He’s not at all too concerned about throwing in any of these young quarterbacks to the wolves just to see if they’re worth building around next season and after that. He’s laser-focused on taking the Jets to the Super Bowl.

Bowles will always start players that will put his team in a position to again, win football games. Considering that McCown has had decent results this season and is one of the reasons why the Jets are 3-3 in the first place, means he will continue to start for the team. It would have to take a serious injury or a major decline in play for him to be benched.

Now, if the Jets are eliminated from making the NFL Playoffs this season, then things might change to perhaps split games with both Petty and Hackenberg the rest of the year. McCown is a bridge quarterback who more than likely won’t even be around for 2018. If such a scenario happens, it’s expected that Petty would get the nod to start and maybe Hackenberg would see some action in garbage time.

With how well the Jets are doing and if by some miracle are in the playoff hunt with McCown healthy and continuing to manage football games well, there’s also that possibility that fans won’t even see either Petty or Hackenberg play at all this season. It would be a shame since they would go into 2018 with yet another huge question mark around the most important position on the team.

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Hopefully, Bowles understands that even if it’s a game or two, the Jets need to have some kind of idea if one or both are worth keeping around for the future. Otherwise, the quarterback position will once again be an area of need that would have to be addressed in either free agency or the 2018 NFL Draft. For now, at least, McCown will continue to put the Jets in a position to make 2017 worth remembering.