If one NFL insider is to be believed, a popular offensive coordinator candidate may be off the table for the New York Jets.
Appearing on Friday’s edition of “The Pat McAfee Show,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter said that Minnesota Vikings’ quarterbacks coach Josh McCown is not interested in leaving his current role to become an offensive coordinator elsewhere.
“Josh McCown is going to be in Minnesota next year unless he gets a head coaching job,” Schefter said on Friday.
McCown, 45, spent two seasons as the Jets quarterback. In 2017, he started and enjoyed a career year with 2,986 passing yards and 18 touchdowns. A year later, in 2018, he backed up rookie Sam Darnold.
Six years later, McCown found himself back with Darnold. This time, however, he served as his quarterbacks coach while leading the USC product to a career year of his own.
“Josh McCown is going to be a head coach one day,” Schefter added. “I don’t know if it’s going to be this year, or next year, or the year after, but I think he’s going to get a chance at some point in time.”
This would be a potentially significant blow for Brian Flores as a head coaching candidate, as McCown has been linked to him as a possible offensive coordinator.
It also makes McCown’s own candidacy for the Jets’ job more interesting, as New York could simply try to hire the former quarterback as the head coach himself.
Either way, this simple news update could have sweeping ramifications on the Jets’ head coach hiring process, and it will be very interesting to see how it affects the type of coach New York targets for its main role.
When digging into the general head coaching news, Schefter briefly touched on more Jets-related targets.
“Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson are going to get head coaching jobs,” Schefter proclaimed. “We don’t know [who will get] the other four jobs. That’s what we need to pay attention to here.
“I don’t know if we can say, with any certainty, that we know who the clear-cut third guy is.”
Things get even more interesting when factoring in Schefter’s latest thoughts on Aaron Glenn’s candidacy and how he wasn’t so quick to pit Glenn and the Jets together.
“Aaron Glenn’s going back to the Jets, right?” McAfee asked.
“I think Aaron Glenn is in play in New York; I think he’s in play in New Orleans; I think he’s in play in Las Vegas if he wants,” Schefter answered. “[There are] a lot of places I think Aaron Glenn would be interested in.”
How the McCown, Glenn, and Flores merry-go-round shakes out is anybody’s best guess right now, even Schefter’s. However, if he’s correct about Josh McCown’s insistence on not taking an offensive coordinator role, the New York Jets landscape may have suddenly and drastically shifted.
