NFL

Retired QB Garrard returns to Jets on tryout

Even when the Jets get a great quarterback performance, the team has drama at the position.

The latest turn of the Jets’ quarterback carousel came Thursday when the team announced David Garrard was coming out of retirement to rejoin Gang Green. Garrard retired in May, two months after signing a one-year, $1.1 million deal with the Jets, because his surgically repaired left knee kept swelling.

But after a summer of rest, Garrard said he is ready to go and the Jets are giving him a chance to prove it. Garrard called Jets general manager John Idzik over the weekend and told him he wanted to play again.

“I just said I don’t want to turn 50 one day and look back and say, ‘What if I just called somebody just to say, hey, you know [if] there’s an opportunity, I’m really thinking about trying to get back,’ ” Garrard said. “And if anybody tells me ‘We appreciate it. You had a great career, but we’re just going to move on,’ then I would’ve been happy with going on with my life. But I just feel I needed to make that call myself and at least see, test the waters and see and I’m very thankful I did.”

The Jets placed Garrard on the exempt list, meaning he can do everything but play this week and next. The team has until 4 p.m. on Oct. 21 to decide whether to add him to its 53-man roster. Garrard practiced Thursday, getting some snaps with the scout team. He will not be paid for his time on the exempt list.

“This is pro bono,” he joked. “I feel like an intern.”

The move comes three days after Geno Smith’s breakthrough performance against the Falcons. The 35-year-old Garrard is no longer competing for the starting job, as he was in the spring. That job is now Smith’s. If the Jets hold onto Garrard, it would be as a No. 3 quarterback behind Smith and Matt Simms and as a mentor for Smith. That would mean the end of Brady Quinn’s time with the Jets. Quinn was signed on Sept. 2 as insurance after Mark Sanchez went down with a shoulder injury.

Quinn said he can’t worry about his job security.

“I mean, [I had] no reaction,” Quinn said. “It doesn’t change [what I do]. This is a week-to-week business, especially right now. All you can do is focus on your opponent. All you can do is focus on the things you’re doing to prepare for the game and be ready.”

Jets coach Rex Ryan basically said this is a two-week tryout for Garrard to prove he is healthy and then the team will evaluate what to do.

“We’ll see exactly where he is,” Ryan said. “There have not been any guarantees or promises made.”

Garrard said after resting all summer, his knee had a chance to heal. He had surgery on it in August 2012. When the summer ended, Garrard said he began to work out again and his knee responded well.

“Every week it just kept feeling better,” Garrard said. “Then, this past month, it’s been so good. I felt within the last two weeks I had to do something. I talked to my wife about it and got her opinion on me trying to get back. She thought it was kind of crazy at first. I didn’t say anything about it the day before, but I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. She’s so happy that I did because she knows this is my dream.”

Garrard, who has not played in the regular season since 2010, played nine years for the Jaguars, throwing 89 touchdowns and 54 interceptions.

Garrard said he is not approaching this as just a tryout.

“I’m not looking at it like that,” he said. “I’m looking at it as I’m on the team until they tell me otherwise. I feel good. If they felt good about me before OTAs and the offseason, then not really much has changed unless you’re just happy with the guys you have. I’m looking at it as this is my chance to be with this team.”