By Ryan Smith
“Rex’s Carousel of Five” sounds like the newest musical on Broadway this season. As it turns out, that might as well be the title of the NY Jets’ off-season from the quarterback position, and needless to say it’s a comedy of errors right now.
Since the team’s fall from grace after their 2011 AFC Championship loss, the team has missed the playoffs in the 2011 and 2012 seasons and Mark Sanchez has been far from the prodigal son New York had expected.
Now, after this off-season, the Jets have five quarterbacks on their roster and got rid of one of the most polarizing, in a positive or negative way, quarterbacks in the franchise’s history in Tim Tebow.
The current quarterbacks on the roster have interesting resumes to say the least, but in terms of what they do on SM, the numbers speak for themselves as to how the public views each of them.
Let us first start with the released, or better yet, exiled, Tim Tebow.
Tebow’s numbers as a QB have been, an are, shaky at best, but he still has that miraculous playoff run (winning one game in OT) in 2012 that a majority of his supporters fall back on as his shining moment that could come again.
From a football standpoint, he has his doubters, but from a SM standpoint, he is top dog.
@TimTebow – 2.3 Million followers; Tebow’s Klout score (a statistic I’ve grown to love) is 87, making him the second most influential player in the NFL on SM next to RGIII who scored an 89.
Now for the players the Jets kept:
1. Mark “Butt fumble” Sanchez
Sanchez has been one of the worst statistical QB’s in the last three years, but the Jets have attempted to maintain consistency with him in hopes he would improve, which has yet to happen. He did lead the team to two AFC title games, yet didn’t win either of them. In fairness, it doesn’t exactly help when your head coach guarantees a Super Bowl appearance. So overall, he’s mediocre from a football sense.
Social Media-wise, @Mark_Sanchez only has 835K followers, which is only 36 percent of Tebow’s. His Klout score is a modest 81, which still shows he has some influence , but fans love the Christianity empowering Tebow, which is quite obvious despite on-field performance.
2. Greg McElroy
The former Bama boy McElroy never really had much opportunity to prove himself until late last season, but his 79.2 QBR is higher than Sanchez’s 71.4 for his career.
McElroy is actually quite impressive on SM for a third-string QB. His 90K followers on Twitter (@GVMcElroy) is pretty modest and his 79 Klout influence score proves that any NFL player can have major impact on SM.
3. David Garrard
The newly signed vet Garrard has had some very good seasons during his 10 career and has proven his versatility with his 85.3 career passer rating and his 16,000 pass yards and 1,700 rush yards. His age is an issue for the Jets at 35 but you can guarantee he will be there to compete at mini-camp.
His SM presence is not quite as strong though with only 49K followers @davidgarrard9 but his Klout score proves do be an influential 84, which surpasses his counterparts in Sanchez and McElroy, which proves fans love him primarily because he has tenure in the league.
4. Geno Smith
Then there’s Geno. A proverbial first round pick and physical QB specimen, Smith fell to 39th and the second round as what seemed like a steal for the Jets. He is no Luck or RGIII to many, but many sports minds feel he will take the starting job away from Sanchez no matter how confident he feels in keeping it. In a league where the West Coast Offense is dying and the Zone-Read (shameless plug, right?) is emerging, Smith’s dual threat ability fits the mold much better.
Smith seems quite new to SM with less than 400 tweets (@GenoSmith_12) but he still has an ok following of 38K. his Klout score of 73 is quite impressive for being a rookie in the league and practically an unknown until last season. The fans seem to love him though because, although he’s not Tebow, he might be the right QB to light a fire under Sanchez, and it seems he already has.
5. Matt Simms
Who? He is the undrafted rookie the Jets picked up out of Tennessee who was Tyler Bray’s backup. He’ll probably be the understudy to this Broadway show as well. I could not even find his Twitter handle for God’s sake.
So all in all, the Jets need some help in this “rebuilding” phase. It is quite funny that they’re rebuilding with many of the young pieces from last season’s unsuccessful team.
The fans know each player on this team has a presence on SM (for the most part, thanks Simms) and they are going to monitor their every move because these guys are playing football in arguably the biggest sports city in the world.
So no matter how amazing or influential or funny a player may be on SM for the fans, these guys are going to have a lot of work to do on the field to get these fans back to the Broadway Joe days of euphoria.
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The Zone-Read Blog 