The New York Jets, Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills each suffered losses in Week 3 and although it's early, many are pointing the finger at the teams' young quarterbacks. Geno Smith, Ryan Tannehill and E.J. Manuel could eventually be benched for proven veteran QBs at some point this season.
To begin with the most recent, the Jets fell to the Bears 27-19 on Monday Night Football, and if someone had to assess the blame, it would likely fall on quarterback Geno Smith. During the team's first offensive series, Smith was looking for Chris Johnson on a screen pass and made a terribly inaccurate throw into traffic and it was intercepted by Ryan Mundy, who ran it back for a 45-yard touchdown.
Then with five minutes left in the third quarter, the Jets were trailing 24-13 and had the ball on Chicago's 18 yard line. On first-and-10, Smith took the snap and scanned for his options down the field, but nobody was open. He continued to scramble before heaving up an errant pass into the end zone that was intercepted by the Bears' Kyle Fuller. Although this interception didn't lead to any Chicago points, it killed a seven-play drive that was almost guaranteed to at least result in a field goal. On top of that, Smith missed a few open receivers in crucial times and was nearly picked off on a couple other occasions.
Smith has had at least one turnover in every game so far and has completed 65-of-103 passing attempts (63%) for 713 yards, three touchdowns and four interceptions. The obviously issue is with the untimely turnovers, because the Jets have outgained their opponents in total offensive yards (1,128 to 805) and have been outscored by only one touchdown. If Smith's mistakes keep piling up, we might see Michael Vick at some point.
In Miami, head coach Joe Philbin refused to address whether quarterback Ryan Tannehill would be starting this week in London against the Raiders. The Dolphins have suffered two embarrassing losses in a row against the Bills and Chiefs while the third-year quarterback has shown no improvement yet this season. He's completed just 56.5% of his passes for 624 yards with four touchdowns and three interceptions. Running backs Lamar Miller and Knowshon Moreno are both averaging more yards per carry (5.8 and 5.5) than Tannehill is averaging per pass attempt (5.03).
Although the team has a number of injuries, Tannehill is 16-19 as the Dolphins starter and has yet to help his case this season. If Philbin feels he needs to save his own job, backup Matt Moore could appear under center in the near future.
Bills quarterback E.J. Manuel is perhaps the least likely of these three players to be benched, but Buffalo may need to start improving some aspects of his game before they invest more time in him. The Bills started off nicely by defeating the Bears in Week 1 and then the Dolphins in Week 2, but were halted by the Chargers on Sunday. Buffalo has been hanging on thanks to their run game (393 yards) and turnover ratio (+4), but how much longer can both of those remain in their favor?
Jerry Sullivan of the Buffalo News pointed out a major flaw in Manuel's game that will likely hinder the Bills ability to win games moving forward. Against the Chargers on Sunday, Manuel was 23-for-39 for 238 yards, but looking deeper into the statistics tells a different story.
"Marrone pointed to Manuel's completion percentage, which was 59 percent against the Chargers and a respectable 63 percent on the season. But in today's NFL, which features so many low-risk throws, it's no longer any great achievement to complete six out of every 10 passes ... On passes to his running backs and tight end, Manuel completed 16 of 18. On throws to his wide receivers, he went 7 for 21 and didn't have a completion of more than 16 yards," Sullivan wrote.
And those stats aren't only applicable for the game against the Chargers. Through the team's first three games, Manuel has completed only 26 passes to his receivers for 319 yards compared to 29 passes to his backs/tight ends for 294 yards. And last year Manuel was last in the league with just 6.4 yards per pass attempt. If the Bills aren't planning to fix Manuel's downfield passing attempts and accuracy, one can't expect the team to be better than 8-8.
Check out more on ESPN's AFC East blog.
