Last night was ugly for Oregon quarterback Dante Moore, who turned the ball over three times in a blowout loss to Indiana.<\/p>\n
Moore is considered a top prospect in the 2026 NFL Draft Fernando Mendoza is likely to go first overall to the Raiders. Moore has been linked with the Jets as a possible option with the second pick. Many Jets fans are now panicked over Moore\u2019s Peach Bowl struggles.<\/p>\n
I think there are three big things to remember.<\/p>\n
Bowl game performance doesn\u2019t always correlate with NFL success<\/p>\n
When a game draws as much attention as the College Football Playoff Semifinal, it\u2019s easy to get carried away with takeaways. Top quarterback prospects are always under the microscope. It is important to put what we saw last night into context. It was one game. Even the greatest prospects have a bad game now and then. Additionally, a team isn\u2019t drafting a prospect solely for who he is now. You draft a quarterback prospect with the idea that he will improve into a franchise passer aided by your team.<\/p>\n
Two-time NFL MVP Lamar Jackson\u2019s final college game saw him throw 4 interceptions and complete 41.9 percent of his passing attempts. Aaron Rodgers\u2019 final college game saw him net only 246 yards on 42 passing attempts in a bowl game where he threw an interception and no touchdowns.<\/p>\n
On the flip side. Mark Sanchez threw 4 touchdowns and ran for one in his final college game, a decisive Rose Bowl win over Penn State. Justin Fields had a 6 touchdown explosion in a College Football Playoff Semifinal win over Clemson in the 2021 Sugar Bowl. These performances had many fans and analysts sold that Sanchez and Fields would develop into elite quarterbacks upon arriving in the NFL.<\/p>\n
It turns out scouting is more complex than just looking at whether a quarterback did well or poorly in a bowl game.<\/p>\n
Moore has displayed flaws that suggest the Jets might not be the best fit for him.<\/p>\n
With that said, some of what we saw in the Peach Bowl aligns with preexisting concerns I had about Moore. Despite the overall poor performance, he made some genuinely impressive throws. You could see flashes of why many believe Moore has top end talent.<\/p>\n
The bad moments, though? They were really ugly. Moore seemed especially rattled at times when his first read wasn\u2019t open or he was under duress.<\/p>\n
These things aren\u2019t terribly uncommon for a quarterback who lacks experience. Last night\u2019s game was only Moore\u2019s 20th college start. By comparison the CFP semifinal was Mendoza\u2019s 35th start.<\/p>\n
A quarterback can get more comfortable reading defenses and dealing with pressure over time. It can come with experience.<\/p>\n
For all of his ability (which I think is there), Moore strikes me as a fairly raw prospect. He\u2019s still mastering the basics. I\u2019m not sure throwing him immediately onto a fields against NFL defenses and a roster with numerous holes would be the best thing for him. That is almost certainly the fate that waits for him if picked by the Jets, though.<\/p>\n
You might say that the Jets should sit him. I agree, but in reality highly drafted quarterbacks almost never sit for a long time unless they are picked by a team with an entrenched starting quarterback. We can discuss what *should* be done, but the way the Jets are managed there is little reason to expect them to be a team that would stand up to immense pressure and keep a rookie on the bench if he isn\u2019t ready.<\/p>\n
Drafting a quarterback was never a golden ticket to fixing what\u2019s wrong with the Jets.<\/p>\n
Frankly I think many of the reactions from the fanbase today are misguided.<\/p>\n
If you felt heading into last night\u2019s game that the Jets were set because they had a chance to pick Moore, I can\u2019t agree. If you think the team is now doomed because of how Moore played, I can\u2019t agree. If you think the Jets\u2019 future would be secure if they had the first pick and a chance to select Mendoza, I can\u2019t agree.<\/p>\n
The Jets have learned over and over that there are no shortcuts to success in this league. A franchise quarterback is part of the formula for success in this league, but it is not the entire formula. Too often teams claim to be rebuilding, and think the rebuild is entirely based on selecting a quarterback high in the first round of the Draft.<\/p>\n
The Jets have a lot of work to do. The skill positions are a mess right now. This is where I remind you this team did not even have a 400 yard receiver. Garrett Wilson obviously would have gone far past that had he stayed healthy, but the rest of the skill players are giant question marks at best. The defense has few if any reliable parts. Outside of special teams, the most reliable thing the Jets have is the offensive line. Even that isn\u2019t fully built.<\/p>\n
Had Moore been great in the Peach Bowl, he wouldn\u2019t have been a lock to be great. Even Mendoza has more question marks entering the NFL than a lot of analysts want to admit.<\/p>\n
Moore alone certainly couldn\u2019t lift the team unless the bulk of the other problems were also addressed.<\/p>\n
Dante Moore also isn\u2019t the last quarterback prospect who will enter the NFL Draft from now until the end of time. The Jets will have plenty of opportunities and resources in the future to find the right quarterback if Moore isn\u2019t the guy.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s well past time for the franchise to learn lessons like this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last night was ugly for Oregon quarterback Dante Moore, who turned the ball over three times in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051],"tags":[7,226,1917,255,84552,2321,2097,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-666649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-jets","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jets","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-jets","12":"tag-new-york-jets-analysis","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkjets","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115871978896411602","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}