I love how people seem to think someone can either only watch the game or only look at stats, when most people are doing both and using one to provide context or further confirm what they saw in the other.
edit: I would respectfully disagree about the ball placement. My issue with the play is not the throw but was it a wise target to throw on third and 10.
irrelevant play. It was 3rd and 10 and Brecce would have been tackled for no gain. Not worth arguing over. it was right in his hands though.
use imgur it gives you a direct link to drop in forum posts ( press > ... >share links > bbcode link) https://imgur.com/t/upload
Sweet thanks and I agree 100 percent with CVAL that this is not worth arguing about. https://imgur.com/a/qDWSEFq
My thought exactly.... I was disappointed that Breece only had two catches on 6 targets... same was true for G. Wilson...
No argument that pick was a bad play - at least from what I can see and without knowing what Zach saw or was trying to do. It was so bad in fact that it made me immediately wonder why he threw it? IOW, was there something he saw - or thought he saw - or did he expect the receivers to run different routes, or was it just a plain old garden variety dumb play? IDK. But I'm pretty sure he learned something from it in any case, so it's not entirely wasted. But as Noam has repeatedly pointed out, of the incompletes, most were not his fault. Yes, a few were, but again, given the constant heavy pressure he was under it's understandable. And at least two of those incompletes were - to me - really heads up plays where he realized he would get sacked for a big loss and threw it away. In particular that botched fleaflicker where he bobbled the pass back (his fault), and tried to recover it, and then as he was falling realized he wasn't going to recover it and shoveled it out of bounds. The other one was where he was "in the grasp" as soon as he dropped back - in fact the announcers thought he was sacked, but he escaped and ran to his left, but still couldn't find anyone open and was about to be tackled for a loss and did a two-handed "pass" out of bounds. He could have eaten the ball on both occasions and that would've been two less incompletions - would that have satisfied anyone? This is what I mean by looking behind the raw stats. These were plays that showed a much matured player, and one who was keeping his cool even when things were falling apart. Nowhere do any stats show that.
Absolutely should've been a catch, but it would've been a tough one so I'm not going to crucify Breece either, but pros need to make that catch.
First, I question whether "most" people are doing both. Secondly, when you say you're watching the game and combining that with the stats to gain context, but then fall back on quoting the stats to prove your point, you're giving more weight to the stats. Maybe look at this another way: If all we went by were Zach's stats from the game the Jets would've lost, and yet, despite the stats, they won. Which has more relevance then, the stats, or the outcome of play? And speaking for myself, I continue to chew on this bone because as time moves on, the thing that almost everyone will hang onto is the stats - without context - and they'll make arguments with absolute certainty based on these raw numbers. It's wrong. I think even pro scouts and personnel people do this, and it's why they often miss on assessing players, both good and bad. Take Mahomes for example. If you only looked at his stats in college, you might well conclude they were inflated because he played in an "air raid" type offense in a weaker conference. But if you watched enough film of his play you could see that his incredible athleticism and vision and creativity transcended those stats. It was this same type of play that I saw in Wilson at BYU - not saying necessarily quite like Mahomes, but not far off either. And this is what he displayed all game on Sunday, even when he was playing "bad".
I am going to quote from Jets X Factor regarding their review of Zach Wilson's third quarter performance as it mirrors what I said earlier in this thread that Zach Wilson played at a very high level in the third quarter. In fact they thought he played just as well in the third quarter as the 4th quarter. Of course this does not mean I am right about Zach's 3rd quarter play but it's nice to hear someone else validating what I thought I saw. https://jetsxfactor.com/2022/10/05/ny-jets-zach-wilson-qb-grade-steelers/ At the same time their review of Wilson's 1st half was very harsh. Hard to disagree as that INT was such an awful game changing play. I am looking forward to Pavia's review as he does the best film reviews out there and pulls no punches good or bad. Curious to see how he reviews Zach's third quarter.
I agree that the first review was overly critical, and I disagree with some of the conclusions about how he could've avoided pressure and stayed in the pocket - what pocket??? - to make plays rather than scrambling and/or throwing it away. I do agree on the screen pass and the attempt to G. Wilson that was almost picked off that those were bad plays for him, but no QB is perfect...well except for Brady. /s And I also certainly agree with his rationale for his rating system, that it attempts to give actual context to the stats. I just don't agree entirely with his subjective conclusions on some plays, and frankly, without any if us - including him - being on the field or being able to sit with Zach to do a film breakdown we can't really know what he was seeing or feeling. Overall it's a good breakdown and analysis.
Its all relative stats over a long enough period will tend to reflect reality…if he ends up the year with a 50% completion rate then that’s pretty bad, and likely last in the NFL or close enough to it. I would be very upset if he continues to complete only 50% of his passes coming off last year where he was like a 55% passer. And I won’t buy excuses about drops or throwaways or whatnot, because every QB deals with those things and if most or at least the good ones manage to be at or above 60%, then that’s the benchmark…like it or not…good QBs throw for 60%+ completion rates… however, that’s a season long mark. I can agree that in the Pitt game, he only hit on 50% of his passes, and I can also agree that he played pretty well, and honestly, he won the game with two brilliant drives in the 4th quarter against a tough D and a team that we never ever beat. I’m the end, that’s the most important stat of all. He got the win. I think the point is that in this one game, he did better than the stats may indicate, but over a season long sample size, 50% completion rate will most likely not result in a lot of wins. And will tend to more closely approach and reflect how well or poorly he’s played
And to all that I counter with: https://bleacherreport.com/articles...Fame coach Bill,of 50.1 throughout his career. "Let’s talk about his accuracy—Namath averaged a remarkably low completion percentage of 50.1 throughout his career. He also completed fewer than 50 percent seven seasons throughout his career..." And yet, he IS in the HOF and anyone who actually watched him play - on some pretty bad teams, and also in a era that allowed mauling of receivers and QBs, they would understand why he's in the HOF. It ain't because of his stats.
Seriously? The game in the 1960s and 1970s was SO different as to be pretty much irrelevant to todays game. Totally agree that In his time, that completion rate was the norm. There was very little roughing the passer, QBs could be hit all day long, PI was not even a thing until the ball was in the air, DBs were allowed to hit receivers until the ball was thrown so no 5 yard limit, there was no such concept of a defenseless receiver. so I don’t understand the relevance of using a QB stat from 50 years ago…I think Namath’s, while they don’t look great today, were very much in line with his era, and he was throwing for a ton of yards compared to his peers. regardless, I think we’re actually saying the same thing honestly. I can see the poor stats for Zach in this game and I can also in the same breath say he played well. context matters. my point was that over the long haul, playing well will lead to better stats. The two will tend to converge. I think it’s pretty safe to say that at season end, if Zach’s completion rate is about 50% and he throws twice as many picks as TDs, it will pretty much equate to him not having a great year. In this one game, the fact that he only competed half his passes and threw more Picks than TDs doesn’t tell the whole story
When Namath played, a single-season completion percentage in the high 50s would lead the league. Now the league leaders are in the low 70s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...gue_annual_pass_completion_percentage_leaders So Namath is in the HOF because of his stats, you just can't compare stats across eras.
I think it's pretty safe to say Zach played better than his stats indicated; a lot of his incompletions were throwaways, and if he'd thrown the first touchdown instead of caught it, his stats would be better. It's also pretty safe to say that while his performance was enough to beat the Steelers, we'll lose most of the games going forward if he continues to play this way.
Obviously a completely different era as I said in my original reply, but it still underscores the point that you can't simply take stats - as this writer obviously did - without context and draw and valid conclusions. And while I agree that if over the course of a season Zach's raw stats are like this game, it's likely that he didn't play all that well and that the team didn't play well either. That said, if he plays like he did on Sunday, I seriously doubt that his stats will be that poor because over the course of the season, he's going to improve as will his receivers, both individually and in their chemistry with Zach. So we can't really extrapolate anything from this one game, but can certainly conclude that he looked much better than last year and that bodes well going forward.
I'm not only taking this conversation as a whole, I'm taking the routine, day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year conversation as a whole. There is absolutely nothing game or quarter specific in what I wrote. "Context." There are people here who regard stats as the be all and end all answer to the jets situation and those who decry their use at all costs. I'm speaking directly to those who wish to use statistics at any level but always have some proviso about why they should be discounted at the same time. Yes, I'm talking about excuse making. Statistics are compiled the exact same way for every team in the league and, thus do not need to be asterisked with provisos regarding injuries, age, experience, coaching, owners or any other reason.
