INDIANAPOLIS — New Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan is ready to spend.
The Jets are expected to have around $50 million in salary-cap space once the cap is set for this year, and Maccagnan sounds like a man ready to write some checks.
“We will be very active in free agency,” Maccagnan said Wednesday at the NFL Scouting Combine. “Now that being said, let me make a little note there, whether that’s with the high-dollar guys that tend to be the first week or first-few-days guys, I would think we’re going to be potentially in that market. But we’ll also be in the lower- and middle-tier market, too.”
The Jets have plenty of needs to address — from their dismal cornerback situation to finding another playmaker on offense and shoring up the offensive line. Then there’s quarterback. The Jets met with free agent Josh McCown here on Wednesday, Maccagnan revealed. McCown was released last week by the Buccaneers. McCown is part of a thin free-agent quarterback class this year.
The Jets also may end up using the No. 6 overall pick in April’s draft to select a quarterback. Maccagnan said the Jets will meet with Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, the top two quarterbacks in the draft, this week.
“Every quarterback out there we would have an interest in,” Maccagnan said. “We did visit with Josh here at the combine. We at least had a little chance for him to feel us out and us to feel him out a little bit. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re actively going after him.”
The decision at quarterback is the center of the Jets’ universe this offseason … again. Both Maccagnan and new coach Todd Bowles remain cautious in their comments about incumbent Geno Smith, whom they won’t get to truly work with until April, per NFL rules. But it sounds like Smith will get a chance to compete for the starting job no matter whom the Jets sign in free agency or if they end up drafting a quarterback.
“We’re going to know Geno better when we get a chance to work with him going forward,” Maccagnan said. “He’s obviously in our mix. We’re kind of committed to try to make him successful because he’s ours. The team has invested a second-round draft pick in him. We’re trying to do everything to make him successful. His success will be determined going forward based on a lot of other things — his ability to work with our system, his work ethic, his approach, his aptitude at the end of the day.”
Bowles mentioned cutting down on turnovers as one of his prime objectives for the 2015 season. That starts with the quarterback and it’s an area Smith has struggled with in his first two years, turning it over 41 times.
“You can’t win games turning the ball over,” Bowles said. “I think any quarterback in the league going forward has got to be able to protect the football. You can’t win without protecting the football. Every quarterback has to know that, Geno included.”
Bowles praised Smith’s arm and throwing ability, but said the key will be getting to know him.
“We’ve got to sit him down and see what he can and can’t do, what he’s good at, what he’s not good at, what kind of intangibles he has going forward,” Bowles said.
The expectation right now is Winston will go first overall to the Buccaneers, but Mariota may be there when the Jets are picking at No. 6. Maccagnan did not want to discuss either quarterback specifically. But he did address the idea that quarterbacks who play in a system like Mariota did at Oregon will struggle in the NFL.
“I think at the end of the day, when you look at a lot of the quarterbacks coming from those systems to the NFL, and some make the transition well, a lot of it has to do with kind of the intangibles about the players and his work ethic, his mental toughness, it’s all the other aspects that go into what makes him a good quarterback,” Maccagnan said.