Zach Wilson jets
Syndication: The Record

As the Jets have worked through the offseason, there’s been a cloud of uncertainty hanging over them. Even though quarterback Aaron Rodgers wants to play for New York in 2023, it hasn’t happened yet. However, one thing is certain: whatever happens, Zach Wilson is the backup.

We knew this would be the case all along. Head coach Robert Saleh officially said it recently when chatting with the media. Now that the former second-overall pick is a backup quarterback for the time being, how does he rank among the league’s second-stringers?

Not well, folks. That’s also probably not Earth-shattering news. But how bad is he? Jets X-Factor ranked the league’s current backup quarterbacks with career passer rating as the benchmark to find out.

Wilson’s career passer rating is sitting at 70.9 through his first 625 attempts as a pro football player. Among 26 quarterbacks with at least 10 career pass attempts under their belt, Wilson ranks 23rd. Twenty-third! The only signal-callers behind him are Joshua Dobbs of the Browns (66.6 on 85 attempts), P.J. Walker of the Bears (63.9 on 228 attempts), and Malik Willis of the Titans (42.8 on 61 attempts).

And, just in case you’re wondering, former Jets legend Mike White — who’s now the backup in Miami for the Dolphins — checks in at 21st overall. He has a 75.4 passer rating off 307 total attempts.

So, yea. Wilson has work to do if he’s going to reach the heights the Jets eventually want him to get to. Climbing up the backup QB passer rating leaderboards won’t be high on his list of priorities in 2023. If all goes according to plan for New York, he won’t have many opportunities to improve that number during the regular season anyways.

Everyone at Florham Park will just hope that being Rodgers’ understudy for a year or two will help replace the development that should’ve happened the last couple of seasons.

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You can reach Matt Musico at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.

Matt Musico is an editor for ESNY. He’s been writing about baseball and the Mets for the past decade. His work has been featured on numberFire, MetsMerized Online, Bleacher Report, and Yahoo! Sports.