New York Jets: How has Tim Boyle performed?

Tell me if you’ve read this before: the New York Jets have benched Quarterback Zach Wilson.

In his place will be 29 year old journeyman quarterback Tim Boyle. Given that Tim Boyle has thrown a total of 120 passes over his five-year career, it is understandable if the collective response to him going is something along the lines of “who is this guy?”

His regular season play

From Pro Football Reference , Boyle has played in 18 NFL games. He has thrown 120 passes. His career statistics are as follows:

Completion %: 60.8% Yards per attempt: 5.1 TD/INT: 3/9 Most notably in Boyle’s career were 3 games he started for the Detroit Lions in 2021. While going 0-3 as the starter, he accumulated the following statistics:

Completion %: 64.9% Yards per attempt: 5.6 TD/INT: 3/6 Either way, not great. But, hey, it’s a small sample size so let’s go find a bigger one.

His preseason play

Across 251 passes spread out over 17 games played:

Completion %: 58% Yards per attempt: 5.6 TD/INT: 16/6 Much the same only without the interception issue. Doesn’t look too effective but it’s some cause for optimism

His college play:

What the heck, let’s see what he did in college. Data from his time at UConn from Sports Reference.

... and while I planned to give this data the time of day, it turns out that Tim Boyle barely played while at UConn. He accumulated 275 pass attempts across three seasons... and 133 of those came as a freshman. Not sure how telling that is but let’s look at it anyway:

Completion %: 48.4% Yards per attempt: 4.5 TD/INT: 1/13 All things considered, that’s not great. After UConn, he transferred to Eastern Kentucky where things were a bit more encouraging across one season of 327 pass attempts... but not by much:

Completion %: 61.5% Yards per attempt: 6.5 TD/INT: 11/13 ... so let’s just hope he’s gotten better since then because all I have to say on this one is “yeesh.”