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Perpetual free agent Ryan Fitzpatrick is on the verge of giving away the starting job he only earned due to a locker-room punch. Well, at least that's what Jets head coach Todd Bowles is saying.

On Wednesday, Bowles issued a deadline for Fitzpatrick to re-join the Jets and remain the starting quarterback. The only problem: his deadline was kind of vague. It even included the phrase, "You have time until you don't have time," which probably has Harvard man Fitzpatrick in a tizzy as he tries to unscramble Bowles' message.

"There comes a point, but we're not at that point yet," Bowles said, per ESPN. "If it's Week 4 in training camp and he's not here, you know who your starter is going to be Week 1."

"It's to the extreme, but there's a ticking clock," he added, before issuing the vaguest warning ever. "You have time until you don't have time."

OK, there's one more problem: Bowles said on Thursday that he's done talking about Fitzpatrick. And that means we might never know when exactly Fitzpatrick won't have time left until Fitzpatrick actually doesn't have time left.

"With all due respect, I'm through talking about Fitz. I'm going to worry about the guys I have on the team," Bowles said, via Jets PR. "I think I've expressed and said everything about the quarterbacks that I'm going to say at this standpoint. And until I get to training camp and see what happens, I'm pretty much done talking about it."

The clock is working against Ryan Fitzpatrick, which is good news for Geno Smith. USATSI

Clearly, Bowles doesn't understand how the offseason works. What are we supposed to write about if we can't write about a 33-year-old journeyman quarterback who's failed to lure a team into signing him by wearing the disguise of his slightly-better-than-mediocre 2015 season?

Anyway, since this might be the last time we'll hear Fitzpatrick's name on Bowles' lips until the end of July, allow me to express on my true feelings regarding Fitzpatrick. Oh wait, I already did that, which you can read here:

Ryan Fitzpatrick is not the Jets' quarterback cure. He's not their short-term plug for next season and he's not their long-term savior for the years beyond. Ryan Fitzpatrick is still Ryan Fitzpatrick, the antithesis of dependable, a synonym for inconsistent.

So now that we're officially done chatting about Fitzpatrick until he latches onto a team, let's examine the Jets' current quarterback group as if Fitzpatrick no longer exists. Though the team invested a second-round pick in Christian Hackenberg, who's shockingly experiencing accuracy issues thus far, it figures to start Smith instead.

Smith, if you recall, entered training camp last year as the starter and lost his job when IK Enemkpali punched him in the jaw. In his three-year career, Smith's thrown eight more interceptions than touchdowns and has posted a 72.3 passer rating. That's not ideal and might be one reason why so many Jets players seem to value Fitzpatrick.

Behind him is Bryce Petty, who's done absolutely nothing in the league as the Jets' fourth-round pick of 2015. And stationed behind Petty is Hackenberg, whose offseason has gone a little like this:

Clearly, the situation is bleak. And if that scares the Jets, then they should probably read Joel Corry's gameplan for getting back together with Fitzpatrick.

But really, the Jets are handling this situation perfectly. Fitzpatrick has no leverage because nobody in the entire NFL really wants to pay him millions of dollars, and his only other options would be to sit out the season (which won't happen because he's already 33) or hope some team experiences a rash of quarterback injuries at some point in the season. Now, Bowles is imposing a deadline -- albeit, a vague one -- to add some more pressure.

The Jets, on the other hand, were totally comfortable starting Smith a season ago. His broken jaw shouldn't change how they feel about him. Just because Fitzpatrick is a slightly better quarterback than Smith, doesn't mean the Jets should overpay for Fitzpatrick's services.