Jets are linked to a lot of quarterbacks, but were any good in 2022?

While a National Football League roster consists of 53 players, the conversation around the New York Jets from the national media, the local media, its players, and its fans has largely focused on one position: the starting quarterback.

This fascination with who will start the season behind center is understandable given the importance of this position. Keeping that in mind, a number of options have been bandied about as to who will command the offense, including Aaron Rodgers (Green Bay Packers), Derek Carr (Las Vegas Raiders), and Jimmy Garoppolo (San Francisco 49ers). While most QBs will be able to outproduce the QBs the Jets played last year, that does not inherently mean that the replacement will be “good” by the standards set by the league (which is the bar that truly matters).

To measure the the degree to which a QB is “above average,” we can look at QB wins above replacement (WAR), which is thought to estimate the degree to which a given QB outperforms the “average” QB.

As shown, the players linked to the Jets were rather average in 2022 (at least according to this analysis) with total WAR scores of .22, .17, and .03 for Garoppolo, Carr, and Rodgers, respectively. For reference, a score of 0.00 is perfectly average and 12 QBs received a score over 1.00.

For Jets fans, this gives reason to perhaps temper our expectations in regards to QB play based on the available QBs unless we expect a given QB to drastically outperform their metrics from last season.