Report: As backup quarterbacks go, TJ Yates could use some work

Atlanta Falcons backup quarterback TJ Yates gets a lot of flack. He's like Dave: capable but you just can't trust him. And let's be honest, backup quarterbacks in the NFL are rarely reliable.

NFL.com's Mark Sessier ranks Yates 25th among backup quarterbacks. While he acknowledges Yates' playoff win in 2011, Sessier faults him for "[showing] very little since." I'm not really sure what that means, at least in this context. We're talking about backup quarterbacks, after all.

Yates has logged 36 regular season pass attempts in the three years since his playoff win. He hasn't started a game in that time frame. And with the Falcons, Yates logged all of 4 pass attempts in 2014. If anything, he's an unknown commodity at this point. Do you want him as your franchise quarterback? Absolutely not. But would he be a decent replacement? Maybe. At the very least, excluding starters, is he the 25th guy you'd pick to replace Matt Ryan in a bind?

You can try to impeach Yates with his preseason play, and to be frank, it was lackluster in 2014. But that's the preseason. I'm just not sure how you can confidently rank a lot of these guys ahead of Yates. Your thoughts?