It’s interesting that for a team whose best-known player is a former quarterback (Joe Namath, of course), the New York Jets have been living in QB purgatory for a very long time. Of course, if you’re a Jets fan, it’s less “interesting” and more “disgusting,” but we digress. Namath was the first quarterback in pro football history to throw for over 4,000 yards in a season, which he did with the American Football League’s Jets in 1967. But since then, no other Jets quarterback (including Namath) managed to do it, even when the NFL increased the number of regular-season games from 14 to 16 in 1978.
Now that the 16-game season appears to be a thing of the past in favor of a 17-game campaign in 2021 and beyond, it behooves us to mention that the Jets are one of two teams to never have a quarterback throw for 4,000 yards in the 16-game era. The Bears, of course, are the other. Now, the Bears haven’t had a franchise-defining quarterback since Sid Luckman’s last good season in 1946, so that’s an entirely different quarterback curse. The Jets’ quarterback curse is one in which one quarterback set the standard for passing yards, and after that, nobody else could come even close.
It helps to mention the guys who were responsible for this statistical no man’s land from 1978 through the present, because it explains a lot.
Matt Robinson, Richard Todd, Pat Ryan, Ken O’Brien, Browning Nagle, Boomer Esiason, Frank Reich, Neil O’Donnell, Vinny Testaverde, Ray Lucas, Vinny Testaverde again, Chad Pennington, Brooks Bollinger, Brett Favre (for one season), Mark Sanchez, Geno Smith, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Josh McCown, and Sam Darnold.
Fitzpatrick came the closest with 3,905 yards in 2015 — a season in which he also threw for 31 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. This is most likely the best quarterback season in Jets history, such as it was. Sadly, Fitzmagic finished his season with a 181-yard, three-interception performance against the Bills. Perhaps some things were just never meant to happen.
If Fitzpatrick’s 2015 wasn’t the best quarterback season in franchise history, Ken O’Brien’s 1985 might have been. That year, O’Brien threw for 3,888 yards, 25 touchdowns, and just eight interceptions. His primary issue that season was that he had to face the ’85 Bears defense in Week 16, which resulted in a 19-6 loss in which O’Brien completed 12 of 26 passes for 122 yards. Not that any other quarterback fared any better against Buddy Ryan’s guys that year.
And there was Vinny Testaverde, the NFL’s ultimate stat collector, who in 2000 threw for 3,732 yards, 21 touchdowns, and 25 interceptions. Which sums things up nicely.
Richard Todd and Mark Sanchez had their moments, respectively, with 3,478 yards in 1983 and 3,474 yards in 2011. And then, there was Brett Favre, who played one year for the Jets (2008) in his time between the Packers and the Vikings. In 2007, his last year with the Packers, Favre amassed 4,155 passing yards. In 2009, his first year with the Vikings, Favre amassed 4,202 passing yards. In 2008 with the Jets? 3,472 yards, and a league-leading 22 interceptions. Oof.
Of recent note is Sam Darnold, who has been confined to his own offensive coach hell in the NFL with Jeremy Bates, Dowell Loggains, and (horror of all horrors) Adam Gase overseeing the entire disaster. Darnold has broken 3,000 yards just once in his three NFL seasons, the Jets might be moving on without him, and though the presence of new offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur augurs well for the Jets’ QB future… well, how many times have we said that before with different guys in charge?
Even Namath was never able to match his historic season again. In 1968, the season that ended with the Jets beating the Colts in Super Bowl III, Namath threw for just 3,147 yards, had a six-game stretch with no touchdown passes, and didn’t throw a single pass in the fourth quarter of that historic game. Due to injuries, Namath’s passing yards would plummet over the next few seasons — from 4,007 in 1967, to 3,147 in 1968, to 2,734 in 1969, to 1,259 in 1970, to 537 in 1971. He did manage a few more high-volume seasons, but more and more, he was the guy leading the league in interceptions more than anything else.
As we have noted, some teams just have a quarterback curse.