Thirteen years is a long time to carry a story. When Geno Smith walked back through the doors of the Atlantic Health Jets facility this spring, he did so as a man who had earned that walk. Drafted here in 2013, punched in the face by a teammate in this building, booed off this field, and eventually discarded, he spent the years that followed clawing through the Giants, the Chargers, and finally Seattle, where Pete Carroll handed him a lifeline nobody else would.
He led the league in completion percentage in 2024, winning the Comeback Player of the Year award in the process. He made back-to-back Pro Bowls before a historically down year behind a porous offensive line in Las Vegas saw his stock plummet. Now, however, he’s back in the Big Apple, flanked by three first-round rookies, David Bailey, Kenyon Sadiq, Omar Cooper, arriving at a franchise that just endured a miserable 2025 season with Justin Fields under center.
Smith called it “a complete full circle moment back to where it all began.” It may well be cathartic for the veteran QB, but the AFC East is more cutthroat than ever, with Drake Maye now alongside Josh Allen when it comes to the best quarterback in the AFC talk. So, where does the Jets’ new gunslinger rank alongside the AFC East’s starting quarterbacks? Let’s take a look.
Josh Allen – Bills
Josh Allen showed up to Joe Brady’s introductory press conference on crutches in a walking boot, and somehow that image captures everything about the Buffalo Bills sensation in 2025. He played through a broken bone in his right foot. He threw for 349 yards and three touchdowns in an AFC Divisional Round loss to Denver. He finished the season as the only player in football to combine 3,000-plus passing yards with 500-plus rushing yards, 4,247 total yards, 39 total touchdowns, an 87.4 PFF grade ranking sixth among 43 qualified quarterbacks. He was named an MVP finalist for the fifth time. And still the Bills went home in January in arguably their most heartbreaking playoff loss of them all.
Allen has now scored 40 or more total touchdowns in five consecutive seasons, a feat no quarterback in NFL history had managed more than three years running. He hasn’t thrown fewer than 28 touchdown passes since 2019. He is, by any reasonable measure, one of the two or three best quarterbacks alive. He also doesn’t have a Super Bowl, but online betting sites, as they seemingly do every year, think that the long wait for the Lombardi could well come to an end in 2026.
The latest odds from Lucky Rebel make Allen and the Bills a +1000 second-favorite to win Super Bowl LX next February. Not only that, but they’re also clear -130 betting favorites to win the AFC East as well. Much of those hopes, as ever, fall on Allen’s shoulders.
Drake Maye – Patriots
A year ago, Drake Maye was a promising youngster heading into his second season on a rebuilding team. Now, he’s the reason the Patriots reached Super Bowl LX, and he’s 23 years old.
His 2025 numbers weren’t just good. They were historically good. A 90.1 PFF grade, third among 43 qualified quarterbacks. 4,394 passing yards, 31 touchdowns, 8 interceptions across 601 dropbacks. He led the entire NFL in EPA per play, completion percentage at 72.0%, and yards per attempt at 8.9. He finished as runner-up to Matthew Stafford for MVP. New England went 14-3, won the AFC East, and fell to Seattle 29-13 at Super Bowl LX. Maye needed a pain-killing injection in his throwing shoulder before kickoff and still played.
For many, that already puts him ahead of Allen. After all, he ripped the divisional title away from the Bills star last season before then going on to reach the Big Game in just his second year, something Allen is still waiting to do after seven straight bitter playoff exits. We have sided with the 2024 MVP’s longevity over the undeniable brilliance of Maye, but if he leads the Patriots to another AFC East title this season, he may well unquestionably be the best quarterback in the division in 12 months’ time.
Geno Smith – Jets
He’s 35. He threw 17 interceptions in 15 games for a Las Vegas team that finished 3-14 in his starts. His passer rating was 84.7. Some of that was the Raiders, weak roster, poor protection, genuinely difficult circumstances, but film doesn’t lie, and the film from 2025 was hard to explain away. Decision-making that recalled his earliest Jets years. Gifts to opposing secondaries that a quarterback with his experience shouldn’t be making.
And yet. The Jets sent a sixth-round pick to get him back for a reason, and that reason is more than sentiment. Smith is a bridge quarterback for a team in full rebuild mode, and that is precisely what this offseason required, someone to hold the position, protect the rookies around him, and keep the franchise competitive enough that the rebuild doesn’t collapse under its own weight.
Aaron Glenn has “no doubt” Smith is QB1. Breece Hall is still here. Three first-rounders are coming. A Wild Card berth would be an overachievement. The real question, whether his 2025 collapse was situational or terminal, won’t be answered until October. The same city that once destroyed his confidence is now asking him to rebuild something. That’s a heavy ask. It might also be the best possible ending.
Malik Willis – Dolphins
The Dolphins lost everything over the course of the last year. Tua Tagovailoa was benched and ultimately released for a record-setting dead cap hit. Tyreek Hill gone. Jaylen Waddle gone. Mike McDaniel fired. Chris Grier dismissed mid-season. Into that wreckage walked Jeff Hafley and Jon-Eric Sullivan, both arriving from Green Bay, and they immediately handed Malik Willis, Jordan Love’s backup, 22 career games, 1,322 yards, 6 touchdowns, a three-year, $67.5 million contract and the keys to a franchise in freefall.
Miami made Willis’s signature their top priority in the offseason, despite Hard Rock Stadium seemingly falling apart at the seams. One projection has Miami winning 2.5 games against the second-toughest schedule in football, projecting Willis for 13 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. His 2025 sample in Green Bay was genuinely encouraging, 85.7% completion rate, a 93.1 QBR, a brilliant game against Baltimore, but four games of backup work is not a resume. 2026 has to be the year he builds one, or a career as a perennial backup lies in wait.