NY Jets: Zach Wilson’s rank among 32 backup QBs is alarming

Here is where Zach Wilson would rank out of the NFL’s 32 backup quarterbacks

New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh recently told reporters at the NFL’s league meetings that he expects Zach Wilson to be the Jets’ No. 2 quarterback.

Robert Saleh says that Zach Wilson will be the Jets' No. 2 QB: pic.twitter.com/rB6HYv8BBF

— Jets Videos (@snyjets) March 27, 2023

Jets fans know Wilson clearly isn’t worthy of a starting quarterback job right now, but the threshold for being a solid backup quarterback is substantially lower. Would Wilson really be all that bad as a backup?

To answer that question, I decided to see where Wilson ranks among all of the projected backup quarterbacks in the league.

I went through each team’s depth chart and pegged their most likely QB2. Then, I ranked them all according to their career passer rating.

Note that in many cases, choosing who should be designated as a team’s backup quarterback is a subjective endeavor. Some teams have lingering injury questions. Some teams may hold competitions to determine who will be the backup. Additionally, many depth charts will be significantly altered by the draft.

So, this is just my best shot at estimating who will end up being the QB2 for each squad when it’s all said and done.

Some of the league’s current backup quarterbacks either have not thrown an NFL pass or have only thrown an extremely small number of passes. If a quarterback did not have a sufficient volume of pass attempts for their rating to be meaningful, I excluded them from the ranking and listed them at the bottom of the table.

Without further ado, here is a look at the career passer ratings of each team’s most likely backup quarterback.

Rk	QB	Team	Career Rating	Career Passes
1	Bailey Zappe	NE	100.9	92
2	Gardner Minshew	IND	93.1	933
3	Marcus Mariota	PHI	89.3	2095
4	Tyrod Taylor	NYG	88.2	1550
5	Nick Mullens	MIN	88.0	655
6	Andy Dalton	CAR	87.6	5396
7	Jameis Winston	NO	87.5	2835
8	Mitch Trubisky	PIT	86.4	1765
9	Taylor Heinicke	ATL	85.7	830
10	Case Keenum	HOU	85.2	2180
11	Cooper Rush	DAL	84.9	212
12	Trey Lance	SF	84.5	102
13	Jacoby Brissett	WAS	84.4	1577
14	Brian Hoyer	NE	82.9	1518
15	Kyle Allen	BUF	82.2	704
16	C.J. Beathard	JAX	80.3	510
17	Colt McCoy	ARI	79.9	1220
18	Drew Lock	SEA	79.3	710
19	Nate Sudfeld	DET	77.3	37
20	Tyler Huntley	BAL	76.6	305
21	Mike White	MIA	75.4	307
22	Jarrett Stidham	DEN	73.5	131
23	Zach Wilson	NYJ	70.9	625
24	Joshua Dobbs	CLE	66.6	85
25	P.J. Walker	CHI	63.9	228
26	Malik Willis	TEN	42.8	61
-	Kyle Trask	TB	N/A	9
-	Easton Stick	LAC	N/A	1
-	Jake Browning	CIN	N/A	0
-	Shane Buechele	KC	N/A	0
-	Danny Etling	GB	N/A	0
-	No QB2 On Roster	LAR	N/A	0

Zach Wilson’s career passer rating of 70.9 ranks 23rd out of 26 qualified backup quarterbacks. This suggests that Wilson would be one of the worst backups in the NFL going into Week 1.

As the Jets prepare for a season in which they will have legitimate Super Bowl aspirations, it would be puzzling if they remained content with Wilson as their backup. Say Aaron Rodgers goes down (knock on wood) – is Zach Wilson really the guy they want to see trotting out there in front of the raucous and unforgiving MetLife Stadium crowd? Taking over control of the franchise’s best shot at a championship in over a decade?

At the moment, only three teams (Cleveland, Chicago, and Tennessee) are poised to utilize a backup quarterback who has a worse career passer rating than Wilson. This is an alarming truth – one that Joe Douglas and the Jets should not ignore if they are serious about competing for a title in 2023.

There were plenty of appealing backup quarterback options on the free agent market this offseason, but most of them have already been signed. However, if the Jets are interested in pursuing a veteran backup, there are still a few players available who would probably be upgrades over Wilson, including Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, Teddy Bridgewater, and Trevor Siemian.

Or, the Jets could select a quarterback in the middle rounds of the draft to provide competition for Wilson. Even if the rookie doesn’t beat out Wilson for the backup quarterback job, his presence should, at the very least, apply much-needed pressure on Wilson. Simply handing Wilson the job with no competition could be counterproductive for his development.

I’m curious to see how the Jets handle the back end of their quarterback depth chart over the next couple of months. Giving the backup quarterback job to Zach Wilson seems like an imprudent idea for a team that currently possesses the sixth-best Super Bowl odds at most sportsbooks and will be starting a 39-year-old quarterback.

Will the Jets add competition for Wilson? Or will they remain faithful to Wilson and hope for the best?

All that’s for certain is this: Based on what he’s done in the NFL so far, Wilson would enter the 2023 season as one of the least efficient backup quarterbacks in the league if he does indeed hold onto the role.