Marty Mornhinweg Speaks on the Quarterback Competition

Jets offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg spoke today about the quarterback battle and offered up the following per Manish Mehta.

"We don't care what the prevailing thought is," new offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg told the Daily News about the perception that the quarterback battle will certainly be alive at the start of training camp. "We only care about our competition here."

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Mornhinweg wants one of the quarterbacks to distance himself during a critical, but often overlooked stretch of the offseason program that began on Monday. But could someone actually separate himself that much for the Jets brass to declare a winner by mid-June based on 10 OTA practices and three minicamp practices?

"Oh, absolutely," Mornhinweg said. "Sure. Absolutely. That's all part of the process. Absolutely. Everything we do is important. Our meetings are important… the way we go about our meetings, the way we go about our preparation right now with a new system. These are very important things. Every pass we throw out there in OTAs and these practices are important."

I'm sure OTA's will be important, but it feels very unlikely a starter will be named entering training camp. That would go against the competition-y vibe the Jets keep telling everybody about.

The camp battle actually looks very similar to the last competition the Jets had at quarterback, which came in 2009 (Kellen Clemens last time; Mark Sanchez this time). There is the failed high pick who used to be the guy of the future. There is the rookie who is the new guy of the future (Mark Sanchez; Geno Smith). There is the late round SEC quarterback nobody really believes in (Erik Ainge, Greg McElroy). Finally, there is the fourth stringer who will be lucky to make the roster (Kevin O'Connell, Matt Simms).