Mentor?

While Sam Darnold had Josh McCown and Trevor Siemian to lean on as mentors for his first two NFL seasons, the Jets are bringing in Joe Flacco to be more a competitive backup than anything.

Flacco has said that it isn’t his job to mentor young quarterbacks. In 2019, he didn’t view it as his responsibility to mentor Broncos second-round pick Drew Lock. While he wished him well, he wasn’t going to go out of his way to be a guide for Lock.

“Listen, I have so many things to worry about. I’m trying to go out there and play the best football of my life,” Flacco said in May 2019. “As far as a time constraint and all of that stuff, I’m not worried about developing guys or any of that. That is what it is. I hope he does it well. I don’t look at that as my job. My job is to go win football games for this football team.”

Now that Flacco is entering the twilight of his NFL career and accepting a backup role with the Jets, he could be singing a different tune about mentorship. However, it should not be expected that he’ll take a Frank Gore-like approach in the Jets locker room.