Bailey Zappe squandered his best chance to win Jets’ quarterback competition

Bailey Zappe’s quest to become the New York Jets’ backup quarterback officially ended Saturday after the club parted ways with the 2022 fourth-round pick. 

Not that the move was overly surprising. Zappe had played his way off the 53-man roster with a disappointing preseason, and rookie Cade Klubnik had long since surpassed him on the depth chart. 

Back in May, we openly wondered whether Zappe — who at the time was the favorite to back up Geno Smith — could eventually get his chance to follow in former teammate Mac Jones’ footsteps. 

Instead, Zappe woke up on Sunday morning as a free agent, giving him plenty of time to figure out what went wrong this summer. 

Bailey Zappe wasted his chance to become the New York Jets’ backup quarterback

Put yourself in Zappe’s shoes for a moment. You’re a fifth-year quarterback whose only realistic competition for the backup spot is a fourth-round pick and someone who looked dreadful as an undrafted rookie. 

All that Zappe needed to do was look competent. That’s it. Playing like someone worthy of the No. 2 spot might have been enough to convince either the Jets or another team that he deserved a 53-man roster spot. 

You can easily argue that the Jets potentially always intended for Klubnik — or whoever they would have drafted — to be the backup behind Smith, which would have been incredibly dangerous. Granted, it’s an idea that we ourselves endorsed, so we acknowledge that we may have been wrong. 

But this is why we also repeatedly insisted that the Jets should have used Klubnik’s rookie season as an unofficial redshirt year. Specifically, we cited the Dolphins’ handling of Quinn Ewers, though his Miami tenure ended with Saturday’s trade to Jacksonville. 

Speaking objectively, the Jets should have realistically taken one of two approaches at backup quarterback:

• Add a proven veteran backup, like Andy Dalton or Case Keenum, and go into the season with Klubnik as the third-stringer. 
• Plan on Klubnik being the backup and give him a significant number of preseason reps, while also keeping multiple quarterbacks around as camp bodies. 

Recent weeks have indicated that the Jets did the latter, though the execution is where things went wrong. Perhaps the move looks so glaring in hindsight because the team’s overall preseason quarterback play was so mediocre.  

Yet, Russell Wilson was the only veteran quarterback — obviously outside of Smith — who the Jets were realistically linked to this offseason. Why it turned out to be Russ-or-bust remains unclear, even with Smith’s reputation for durability.

To be clear, none of this is an indictment against the Jets’ decision to draft Klubnik. We’ve advocated for him going back to draft day, and there is still reason to be hopeful about his long-term future. 

As for Zappe, he’ll likely end up on someone’s practice squad within the coming weeks, if not days. There is always space for a journeyman quarterback with a handful of starts under his belt. 

Practice squad quarterbacks deserve some love, too. They get paid to take contact-free practice reps and stand on the sideline during games with a clipboard in hand. We should all be so lucky.

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