FanPost

Is Geno the Worst Starting Jet QB Ever? - A Look at the Best and the Worst Franchise Numbers

Historic Badness

A nice performance for the bulk of the New England game already has some Jet fans rekindling their hope that Geno Smith has a future in this league, a hope not mitigated by the fact that Geno faced little pressure in that game (John B. noted this), and that very likely that this was by Belichick's design, waiting to bring pressure when it was needed. Parenthetically it has been noted, as a sign of Jet quarterback futility that Geno Smith's numbers don't even look that bad, as bad as they are, in the context of the history of franchise quarterbacks. It is as if we are somehow doomed to bad quarterbacks, and Geno is just another one.

It gave me to take a look at Jet starting QBs using the adjusted advanced stat index which allows comparisons across eras. Players are ranked against their peers in a 3 year span, and where they fall is rated against "100" (100 being average). I conducted the search using a 10 start cut off, you can see the sortable results here, or run a new one yourself.

Of course Geno has another game to enhance or degrade his numbers, but after a season like this who wants to look at this stuff, best to just move on. There no doubt will be renewed hope for Geno in the off-season, based on whatever scraps of goodness put forth in games that don't matter, and the wounds of this season heal over. At least at this point we should mark (no pun intended) just how bad Geno Smith has been, and ask: Is he the worst statistical starting QB the Jets have ever had?

A graphic of the results, here ranked by passer rating. The top 3 in any advanced passing index number is shown in green (darkest green being the franchise leader), and the bottom 3 is shown in red (darkest red being the franchise worst):

JetQBFutilityFinal_zps131fca54.0.jpg

Surprise! Geno Smith is not the statistical worst starting Jet QB ever...by season. That honor seems to go to Browning Nagle in his 1992 season with four (4!) worst marks. Geno Smith's 2013 season produced 1 worst (Adjusted Net Yards per Pass Attempt), and 3 second place finishes. And his current season is on pace for 2 second place finishes, and 2 third place finishes. Of note, Esiason's '95 season was pretty morbid too.

But, while Nagle's 1992 season takes the cake for worst ever, we still can raise the question: Has any quarterback contributed a worse statistical performance...as a whole? The only real competition seems to be Mark Sanchez, but with 10 bottom 3 categorical finishes Geno eclipses Mark's mere 5, in terms of quarterback futility. The question only seems to be whether Geno will be given enough starts in the future to definitively seize the crown beyond all question.

Interestingly enough, Pennington's 2002 season dominates the franchise record books, making him look like the best statistical QB the Jets have ever had. And 4 years earlier Vinny seems to have vied with Namath's 1972 season for the honor of 2nd place.

A Franchise Starved For A Good Young QB

The average age of a Jet starting quarterback has been 28.4 years of age. This raises the question of when was the last time the Jets had a good young QB. I set the cut off at 26 and reranked them by the average of 6 categories:

JetYoungQBs_zps76223fa2.0.png

In only 7 seasons have the Jets had a "young" QB who performed above "average" (100) when compared to the rest of the league (we all know that Namath wasn't a statistical wonder, anyways), and only three times since the 1960s, the most recent being 12 years ago.

In any case fun to look over the numbers and reflect back on seasons past, anything to get away from the play on the field these days.

As always, these numbers were hand correlated, there may be errors in transcription.

This is a FanPost written by a registered member of this site. The views expressed here are those of the author alone and not those of anybody affiliated with Gang Green Nation or SB Nation.