There is no world in which Tim Boyle should be an NFL starting quarterback.
That Boyle has an NFL career to begin with, let alone one that spans seven seasons, is remarkable. He was not a good college quarterback. He threw one touchdown pass against 13 interceptions across three seasons of work at Connecticut before tapping out and transferring down a level to FCS Eastern Kentucky. There, he … threw for more interceptions than touchdowns for a 4-7 Colonels team.
This, incredibly, led to paying gigs playing football. He backed up Aaron Rodgers, rode that to a contract with the Detroit Lions, then got the call to join the New York Jets after Rodgers was traded there last spring. He has a career 50.9 passer rating — 22 points below Brock Osweiler’s single-season low.
Yet he still found his way into a lost game in Week 11 thanks to how horrible Zach Wilson had played. Unfortunately for both Boyle and the Jets, there was nothing the veteran did in relief of Wilson Sunday night that suggested he’d be better. He was the only quarterback who was worse than Wilson in Week 11, a slate of games which included a showdown between Kenny Pickett and Dorian Thompson-Robinson.
AND YET:
A new QB in NY: Jets will start QB Tim Boyle vs the Dolphins on Friday, per source.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 20, 2023
This is both a tacit admission the Wilson era cannot go on — something that would have been much more useful three weeks ago before the NFL trade deadline when Joshua Dobbs was available — and a passive protest against the league’s first-ever Black Friday game. Roger Goodell is foisting yet another non-Sunday game upon the world and New York is aching to find out just how desperate people are for what technically counts as football.
The baseline for passer rating calibration is 39.6. That’s what you’d get if you fired every single attempt directly into the turf over the course of the game. Boyle has appeared in six NFL games in his career and failed to hit that number in three of them. The New York Jets are leaving their offense in the hands of a man who is a coin toss away from being more damaging than spiking the ball every dropback.
That is stunning, and that’s where the Jets have landed months after trading a healthy ransom for a four-time MVP at quarterback. The good news is there’s a chance Boyle exceeds expectations in Week 12. The bad news is that’s because the bar for his own performances is subterranean.
