Is Bryce Petty the Long-Term Answer to Jets' QB Woes?

The New York Jets learned a valuable lesson when the Mark Sanchez experiment failed in 2009. A fifth overall pick, Sanchez was the lowest-rated quarterback among those with at least 25 starts during his four seasons as a starter in New York. 

Since then, they've stayed out of the first round in attempts to find their next franchise quarterback, drafting Greg McElroy in the seventh, Geno Smith in the second and Tajh Boyd in the sixth. None have panned out yet, but through a regime change, the Jets have continued to look for diamonds in the rough.

Saturday, they made a calculated gamble in the fourth round of the NFL draft by getting prime value for Baylor quarterback Bryce Petty, who many predicted would go off the board much earlier. 

I don't have a definitive answer to the question posed above. Nobody does. But the draft is a crapshoot teams are forced to participate in. You can't win in this league without a star quarterback. A team hasn't won a championship without one since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl with Brad Johnson in 2002. 

But this crapshoot still gives teams the ability to be savvy. And when you consider how rarely first-round quarterbacks have succeeded in recent seasons, as well as how rarely trading up for pivots has paid off, Jets fans should probably be relieved that the team is giving a shot to a talented quarterback such as Petty rather than mortgaging its future for Jameis Winston or Marcus Mariota. 

Petty is a particularly good pick for the Jets, though, because this is a team that is fueling up to make a run right now. They signed all-galaxy cornerback Darrelle Revis along with Antonio Cromartie to spruce up the secondary, they brought in Brandon Marshall to upgrade the receiving corps, and they drafted blue-chip defensive lineman Leonard Williams to enhance an already jacked defensive front. 

Petty is considered to be an NFL-ready quarterback—or at least something close to that beyond Winston and Mariota. He recorded 61 touchdowns and only 10 interceptions during two full seasons as a starter with the Bears, and he's a mature dude who will turn 24 in a few weeks. 

He'll still have to be coached up. Petty didn't have a playbook at Baylor and will need to get used to making reads in a pro-style offense. The key early, though, could be whether he is disciplined enough to manage the offense while being groomed as a potential franchise quarterback. 

“What I was asked to do in college, it’s different but it’s not because I couldn’t do a pro-style offense...that’s just what I was told to do, so I did it,” Petty said after being drafted, per the New York Daily News. “And I did it to the best of my ability.”

The Jets now have options. And when you're shooting craps, you want to be able to roll as many dice as possible. They might not have totally given up on Smith, who has shown glimpses during his first two seasons. And they brought in underrated veteran pivot Ryan Fitzpatrick in free agency. They now have a chance to pit those three against each other this summer, hoping that one will emerge as a guy who can carry them in 2015. 

Petty is the long-term hope, of course, but there's no rush with Smith and Fitzpatrick on the roster. And don't forget that they haven't put all of their eggs in one basket anyway. Petty will sign a four-year contract likely worth about $3 million. If he doesn't pan out, it's a mid-round pick down the drain. That's a worthy gamble for a franchise that knows it is a quarterback away from contending.