It could be worse: Quarterback edition

The Jets' quarterback situation has been treated as a punchline throughout this offseason, but it can always be worse.

In fact, Josh McCown has been getting some positive press over the past few days and is emerging as a solid leader and a popular member of the locker room.

On the field, he dinked and dunked his way through the first three quarters in the season opener and brought the Jets within a score by leading - and finishing off - a touchdown drive. However, once the Jets were down by two scores, he threw two ugly fourth quarter picks.

Despite his team's eventual blowout loss on Sunday, McCown posted excellent numbers with a quarterback rating of 113.1 and also showed off some nice wheels on a couple of scrambles. While much of this production, including one of his two touchdown passes, came after the Raiders had already built a big lead, McCown wasn't really the main reason for the defeat.

Nevertheless, he lost a fumble, held the ball too long a few times and missed some opportunities down the field, so there was definitely room for improvement.

McCown seems like a good stop-gap quarterback for this Jets team, although if he gets injured early in the year, as he has in recent seasons, then the Jets would be forced to rally around one of their youngers (presumably Bryce Petty).

Also important is the fact that he only has the 29th biggest contract AAV ($6 million) in the league, enabling the Jets to save more money towards bolstering the team in future years. Remember, many expected them to target a Jay Cutler ($10 million) or Mike Glennon ($15 million per year).

Also, the fact he's good enough for the team to function without perhaps winning too many games to prevent the team from earning a premium pick in next year's draft might never be publicly acknowledged as such, but is a significant positive.

So, let's highlight three teams who have it worse:

San Francisco. It might seem like odd timing to pick the 49ers after Brian Hoyer threw for 332 yards and nearly led a late-game comeback last night, but that's because this article was originally written before the game, based on week two's action.

We'll stick with this choice anyway, as Hoyer helped the 49ers into a hole with a terrible interception that led to them being 7-0 down after just 12 seconds. He also did a lot of damage after the Rams had built a lead, as he led three touchdown drives in the fourth quarter.

Hoyer's comeback attempt came up short as he was intercepted on a game-tying two-point conversion. Then, after they got the ball back, he was almost intercepted on a bad third down throw and took a bad sack to end the threat.

Still, it's his week two performance that lands him on this list, as Hoyer took dinking and dunking to another level by passing for just 99 yards on 27 attempts in that game. His 3.67 yards per attempt was the lowest by a 49ers quarterback since Alex Smith in 2005. For context, if you remember that first preseason game where Christian Hackenberg kept dumping it off, that was still over five yards per attempt.

Maybe yesterday's game is a sign he's going to step it up and start winning a few games. If that does happen, it's maybe still preferable to be the Jets, because then you're not only locked into a higher pick but also don't face the temptation of talking yourselves into Hoyer perhaps being the guy.

Cleveland. After a pretty solid opening day start against the Steelers, rookie DeShone Kizer came crashing down to earth against the Ravens.

Kizer had to leave the game a few times due to migraines and the offense functioned noticeably better with Kevin Hogan in there in his place.

While he was in the game, Kizer's accuracy and pocket presence were really poor. He's now been sacked nine times in 118 snaps and lost a fumble early in the game as he was stripped from behind. One of his interceptions was badly thrown, late and behind with an open receiver over the middle in the end zone, while the other was an awful throw back across his body as he rolled out.

We could also have chosen Houston here, but we were keen to feature three different teams from last week. They began the season with Tom Savage at quarterback but he was soon benched for rookie Deshaun Watson. Watson had a rough game in relief of Savage, but actually did pretty well in Houston's second game, so things might be looking up for them. Kizer's issues might just be beginning though.

Kizer obviously has some potential so the Browns might end up pretty well off in the long run. However, for the time being, they're already talking about how they'll live with his growing pains and Jets fans are well aware of how putting a quarterback into such a situation can have lingering effects.

Cincinnati. Surprisingly, the one quarterback with even worse stats than Kizer is one on a $96 million contract.

Cincinnati's Andy Dalton has a 47.2 quarterback rating after two games with a completion percentage of 54.5 and no touchdowns with four interceptions. In fact, their offense has generated just three field goals through two games.

The completion percentage is particularly uncharacteristic for the 29-year old. He has a career mark of 63% and hasn't been below 62% since his rookie year, but this year's mark is currently the worst in the league apart from Case Keenum (who has only played 65 snaps).

Dalton is obviously better than anyone the Jets have at the quarterback position but the Bengals have been stuck with him since committing to him on the long term deal.

Unless a quarterback continues to develop once they get that big money deal, it can effectively place a glass ceiling on the team's potential. Lately, that post-megadeal development hasn't been happening much. Sometimes the teams that haven't found their quarterback of the future yet actually have a more promising future than those who convince themselves that they have.

The Bengals have changed their offensive coordinator, but if their problems continue the Bengals will find themselves in a situation where they'll be considering getting out from under Dalton's contract and moving onto a new era with someone else at the helm.

Now, over to you guys for the fun part. See if you can find some examples of bad quarterbacking play from around the league over the past week and share the gifs, tweets or video clips in the comments...