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The Jets are set to check out another quarterback prospect in advance of the draft, which is now less than three weeks away.
Bryce Petty (Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma) of Baylor, who is likely to get picked in the third or fourth round, is scheduled for a pre-draft visit with the Jets early next week, a league source confirmed Friday night. Word of Petty’s visit was first reported by Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News.
The Jets have the No. 6 pick, and new head coach Todd Bowles has said they’re looking to add a quarterback to a depth chart that now includes Geno Smith, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Matt Simms, though it’s by no means certain they plan to draft a quarterback at all, let alone in the first round.
This is not the time of year to take seriously every sign of interest in a player from an NFL team, tempting though it may be. That the Jets are checking out quarterbacks could be a sign of genuine interest, but it could also be a smokescreen designed to get teams to think particular players are squarely on their radar.
The 6-foot-3, 230-pound Petty put up some gaudy stats—8,195 passing yards, 62 touchdown passes—in just two seasons as a full-time starter at Baylor. But he also played in an up-tempo spread system that rarely required him to be a conventional dropback passer.
In an interview with NJ Advance Media at the Senior Bowl in January, Petty admitted he was just then learning to play in a pro-style system.
“It’s a system that I’ve never run at any level,” Petty said. “The only seven-step dropping I did was to get the ball [out of the shotgun].
“Honestly, it’s night and day. Just from the play call to the concepts to what they’re asking us to do. It’s all different.”
The Jets do now have an offensive coordinator, Chan Gailey, who has experience coaching spread-style offenses.
For scouting reports on Petty, click here and here.
Dom Cosentino may be reached at dcosentino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @domcosentino. Find NJ.com Jets on Facebook.
(Post originally appears here at – http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2015/04/baylor_quarterback_bryce_petty_to_visit_jets_sourc.html)
