KID 'N PLAY
Ranking NY’s best rookie QB debuts
THE mysterious part of Zach Wilson’s career ends just past 1 o’clock Sunday. Wilson will be the 13th New York rookie quarterback since Joe Namath in 1965 to get a start, a wildly divergent and eclectic group. Here are the previous dandy dozen, ranked by performance.
1. Daniel Jones, Sept. 22, 2019: Jones’ debut is what keeps many Giants fans hopeful of what might be. In a 32-31 win at Tampa Bay, Jones was 23-for-36 for 336 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for 28 more yards and two other TDs. He had a splendid rating of 112.7. You could argue he still hasn’t equaled what he was that day, but it’s clearly in there.
2. Sam Darnold, Sept. 10, 2018: Darnold’s very first pass was intercepted and returned for a pick-six touchdown (talk about harbingers). But the rest of the night at Ford Field was a dream come true — and the high-water mark of Darnold’s time as a Jet. He was 16-for-21 for 198 yards, added two TDs to that early pick, and built a 116.8 rating in a 48-17 Jets win over the Lions.
3. Joe Namath, Sept. 26, 1965: Joe Willie’s numbers were somewhat pedestrian (19-40, 287 yards, two TDs, two INTs) but he had a presence as soon as he stepped on Buffalo’s War Memorial Stadium, moving grizzled Bills coach Lou Saban to say after his team lost 33-21: “This young man has poise. Nothing seems to bother him. He has a fine football head and you don’t often see that in a rookie.”
4. Mark Sanchez, Sept. 13, 2009: It’s easy to dwell on how things ended for Sanchez, and forget just how precocious he was across those first two years — and right from the start, a terrific 18for-31, 272-yard performance against the Texans in Houston. He threw one touchdown and one interception and moved Namath to say, “I could see that young man in green and white for a loooong time.”
5. Geno Smith, Sept. 8, 2013: And if you forgot how well Sanchez got out of the gate, it’s almost for certain you forget that Geno was 24-for-38 for 256 yards and a QBR of 80.6 in his debut, opening week against Darrelle Revis and the Bucs, an 18-17 win in which Smith showed real-deal flashes, tossing a TD and an interception and showing (what we thought was) legit poise.
6. Eli Manning, Nov. 21, 2004: The Giants, remember, had built a 5-4 record with Kurt Warner, but recognized that as a mirage and went with the No. 1-overall pick. Eli was underwhelming (17-37, 162 yards, one TD, two INTs) in a 14-10 loss to the Falcons and knew it: “I got to step it up. When your defense holds Atlanta to 14 points, you’ve got to win that game.”
7. Scott Brunner, Dec. 7, 1980: Brunner began to haunt Phil Simms’ dreams in Seattle’s Kingdome by playing just good enough (8-18, 161 yards, two TDs, one INT) to help the Giants beat the favored Seahawks and make people wonder if he wasn’t the Giants’ QB of the future. The Giants’ flight home to Newark was harrowing, and landed with all 145 passengers in crash position.
8. Joe Pisarcik, Oct. 9, 1977: The Giants were a mess and Pisarcik a 25-year-old rookie who’d done time in the CFL. He struggled against the Eagles in a 28-10 loss — 12-for-38, one TD, four INTs — and wasn’t afraid to say so afterward: “I [bleeped] up some passes, but a couple of times I hit the guy and he bobbled it.”
9. Phil Simms, Oct. 7, 1979: Simms wasn’t eye-popping (6-for-12, 37 yards) but the Giants had been 0-5 and the Bucs had been 5-0, and yet Simms did his part to engineer a 17-14 win that certainly earned his first stripe as a leader/winner, moving running back Billy Taylor to gush afterward: “Phil Simms is on his way to being a superstar in this league.”
10. Richard Todd, Oct. 31, 1976: In blustery Buffalo, Todd struggled against the wind, completing just 6 of 20 passes for 87 yards, one TD and two picks, but the Jets beat the Bills, 19-14, and even Namath, whose job Todd was going to take sooner or later, conceded, “We won, and that’s all you can ask a quarterback to do, so he should keep playing.”
11. Greg McElroy, Dec. 23, 2012: You might’ve thought McElroy’s first start had been the 7-6 win over Arizona a few weeks earlier, maybe the ugliest game in Jets history. Instead, that eyesore in which he’d thrown a TD earned him his only career start, a 27-17 loss at San Diego, where he was a forgettable 14-for-24.
12. Bill Demory, Oct. 14, 1973: Wilson’s should be able to clear this lowest bar. The Jets won the game in New England, 9-7, even though Demory completed just one of seven passes for 11 yards.