Mehta: If Jets and Fitzpatrick can't agree, time for Plan Z

Todd Bowles isn’t sweating what feels like the most protracted free-agent contract impasse in the history of the world. Sure, the Jets’ immediate future hinges on whether Ryan Fitzpatrick returns, but the head coach doesn’t appear to be losing any sleep over it.

Bowles, in fact, insisted that his team wouldn’t take a step back this season if the 33-year-old Fitzpatrick signed elsewhere, which simply isn’t true.

The Jets obviously would take a hit if the veteran signal caller, who galvanized a wayward team to a 10-win season, bolts, but the organization has always had the hammer in these negotiations.

“You want everything to work out fine,” Bowles said Tuesday during the AFC Coaches’ breakfast at the annual league meetings in Boca Raton, Florida. “But if it doesn’t, you want to have plans B, C and D in place as well.”

The Jets’ plans B, C, and D, frankly, aren’t anything to write home to mom about.

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One day after Woody Johnson waxed poetic about “Fitzy” and publicly asked him to “come back to the Jets” without actually ponying up a little extra cash to reel him in, Bowles was left explaining the current state of this curious free-agent negotiation.

“It’s a business. It takes time,” Bowles said. “It’s March. We’re not playing right now, so everybody has a right to be stubborn.”

The Wild Wild West stare-down narrative has been exaggerated. The Jets and Fitzpatrick’s camp have had an open line of communication over the past several weeks, according to sources, but the financial divide remains cavernous.

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Bowles said the team does have a deadline in place before moving on, but “we’re not close to that.”

The reality is that this situation should be rectified before the start of the voluntary off-season program in April.

The notion that the Jets have until the start of training camp to resolve this is patently ridiculous. The suggestion that they can wait until even May is laughable on a million levels. Maybe more.

The Jets can’t be in limbo at the most pivotal position in the sport during Organized Team Activities this spring. Pop Warner teams aren’t even run like that.

Your quarterback is your leader. If he’s not, newsflash: You got the wrong quarterback.

Fitzpatrick embodies that role better than anyone in the first year of the franchise’s new regime. Truth be told, Fitzpatrick saved all of their derrieres after Geno Smith’s childishness with IK Enemkpali landed the young quarterback in the hospital with a broken jaw days before the first preseason game.

Your leader needs to be in the building during the voluntary part of offseason training to set the tone for a grueling season ahead.

So, for the love of the football gods, both sides need to get something done soon.

“We’re working through it,” Bowles said. “It’ll work out for the best. … We want to sign Fitz back but we have a plan in place in case (we don’t).”

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That plan isn’t appealing to anyone, including the folks at One Jets Drive, who are trying to convince themselves otherwise.

Bowles, like Johnson, expressed how impressed he was with Robert Griffin III during his recent visit to the team facility. Griffin did, indeed, come across well to the brain trust.

Bowles admitted that Griffin “impressed me with his football knowledge” and knowledge of the history of the game, which will come in handy if he’s competing on Sports Jeopardy, but the real question is whether the former golden boy in Washington can actually still play quarterback at a high level.

Bowles smartly wasn’t concerned about a potential circus-like atmosphere by signing the lightning-rod signal caller. It’s a safe bet that Griffin, humbled by all the nonsense in Washington in recent years, would stay on the straight and narrow path.

“He didn’t badmouth anybody,” Bowles said. “He just wants to play.”

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