Head coach Aaron Glenn and the Jets, after the news that the team and Aaron Rodgers will be parting ways, now need to find their 2025 starter. Tyrod Taylor remains on the roster and has starting and playing experience in his 14 NFL seasons. Also, as we noted in an earlier Inside The Numbers this season, Taylor produced three touchdowns on his three drives behind Rodgers, giving him a 1.000 TD drive rate that is the best since at least 1997 for any QB with two or more drives in a season. (Yes, we know, late-game possessions, small sample size, yet still noteworthy.)
Also on the roster: Jordan Travis, who sat out his rookie season on NFI, and first-year QB Adrian Martinez, who was activated for the Minnesota game but did not play, otherwise spent the entire season on the Jets' practice squad, and signed a reserve/futures contract last month.
The starter, of course, may not have arrived at 1 Jets Drive yet. Glenn & Co. may seek a new veteran QB to come in and compete, and they have the seventh and 42nd picks in the first two rounds to consider some of the top QBs in this draft class.
Who will AG and the Jets wind up with? As Glenn said what he looks for in his quarterback: "A winner. Mental and physical toughness."
Those qualities have helped produce most of the Jets' top recent quarterbacks. Does a winning mentality enhance mental and physical toughness? Or do toughness and availability lead to sustained winning? That's a question for the football philosophers, but those traits sure appear to be linked in sorting out the QBs since Glenn arrived upon the Green & White scene.
The best seasons assembled by Vinny Testaverde from 1998-2001, Chad Pennington from '02-06 and Mark Sanchez in '09-10 came when those QBs started all or most of the Jets' games in those seasons.
Ryan Fitzpatrick had a remarkable 2015, when he and the Jets didn't make the playoffs but he did start all 16 games, lead a 10-6 season and set several individual team records. The next season, a knee injury contributed to his making 11 starts and the Jets falling to 5-11.
Is it pure coincidence that Geno Smith's one shining Green & White season, his 8-8 rookie campaign of 2013 that featured several fan-tastic wins (the opener vs. Tampa Bay, MNF at Atlanta, home wins over playoff-bound New England and New Orleans), came in conjunction with his 16 starts?
On the other end of the scale, for various reasons, in six seasons since 1991, no Jets starter made it to 10 regular-season starts ('96, '99, '03, '05, '07, '22). Those campaigns didn't unfold as well.
Here is the split for the 31 seasons of Jets football since Glenn came to the Green & White as their 1994 first-round draft pick, broken into three categories — the seasons in which one QB had at least 14 starts, the seasons when the starter made 10-13 starts, and the seasons in which no QB made it to double digits (WS*-winning seasons):
| Jets' Main QB Starter | Seasons | Jets W-L / Pct. | WS* / Pct | POs / Pct. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14+ RS Starts | 13 | 110-99 / .526 | 7 / .538 | 4, / .308 |
| 10-13 RS Starts | 12 | 72-122 / .371 | 3 / .250 | 3 / .250 |
| < 10 RS Starts | 6 | 30-67 / .309 | 0 / .000 | 0 / .000 |
A lot more goes into finding the right signal-caller, of course. But it will be a key task for Glenn and GM Darren Mougey to apply the arcane arts of the scouting trade to this year's available QBs and determine the one who will go on to demonstrate his durability and winning ability in the coming months and years.
