New York Jets Offseason: Todd Bowles Speaks About Ryan Fitzpatrick

Dom Cosentino caught up with Jets head coach Todd Bowles at the Senior Bowl and asked him about the team's starting quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick.

"Fans are going to feel like that," Bowles told NJ Advance Media in an interview at the Senior Bowl. "That's with any sport, in any thing: If you're team doesn't win the last game to get in the playoffs, there's going to be an effect from a fan's standpoint. And we respect that.

"But we have won with him. We won some good games, and we lost some games. That's any quarterback. Ryan's not the only guy who had a bad game. There's a lot of people that had bad games. You've got to take the body of work that you've got, and go with that."

As I have frequently said, I am not sure the Jets are going to have a better option for 2016 than Fitzpatrick. Even if he regressed to his norms, he still would give the Jets a higher floor than they have seen in recent years at the position, which might be good enough to win with a quality group of receivers and a good defense. There also is the chance he has found the right situation.

In any event, the Jets do need to be aggressively looking for a quarterback of the future. Even if the team is totally sold on Fitzpatrick, he is 33 years old. He is not a long-term solution. He is a stopgap.