Zach played a great 2md half against Pitt and a great entire game against Miami but for the most part he played pretty poorly on Sunday. He played without confidence and pocket presence. He took two sacks that were on him, he forced two balls that he was lucky to not get intercepted. I will say at the end of the game in a very limited role he played well. I liked the throw to Corey Davis and I loved the screen to CJ. He showed patience on the screen and made a nice sidearm throw to get around Gary. But on the whole it was a very poor game by Zach. We are in his 3rd game of year two we should not be seeing low confidence games where he is forcing throws like that. Zach was bailed out yesterday by an amazing defensive performance and Breece Hall. Zach needs to play consistently well every game. The first half against Pitt and yesterday are the player we do not need to see very often. But, we won and did not need the good Zach. But we will need better in the future from him. Let's see how he responds and plays next week. Yes, his high end potential when things click he is off the charts but we need a dependable consistent QB every game not a bipolar QB. If he can show consistency the high end will come with time. But, he needs to be a lot better than he was yesterday.
RPO means that there is a back in the backfield with him. It's the Spread where he has major issues because the defense knows either a pass or a scramble is in the works. Also the Spread tends to be a short to medium range pass and ZW is better going downfield.
I would like to see Zach go downfield more as that is where he has struggled in his pro career. Where he has been at his best has been in intermediate and short passes over the middle of the field. Which is interesting as at BYU he would often ignore the middle of the field to make throws to the outside that relied on arm strength. In the pros it has been the reverse. His favorite bread and butter route this last year has been that dig route he loves to throw to Davis. I would like to see more outs like the one he did to Moore against Pitt to help open the middle. Certainly, his improved ball fakes have helped open the middle on PA. But, if I am a defense I am going to clog the middle and take away the middle of the field and short routes and force Zach to throw it down the field. Like Miami did until the 79 yarder to Hall. We play 4 straight really good defenses. This will be a real test for Zach and MLF. I don't mind if we limit Zach against these really good defenses but we can't have him taking sacks and forcing balls like he did yesterday.
I thought Zach had a fairly poor game as well. However, From my perspective one of the "bad" throws that the announcer and some posters have been ragging on him about, the one where he was rolling out, things were looking dicey and he threw into the endzone where he was "lucky it wasn't intercepted". For me? I've not only got no problem with that throw, I thought that was incredible. That was right on the money, an absolute laser, and my analysis was more like "Green Bay was lucky that wasn't a touchdown" Frig man... if you've got the ability to make throws like that I say have at it. That was Farve-esque which is supposedly what we were signing up for paying the #2 overall pick for this kid. I don't mind a little gunslinging here and there when you've got the goods. I'll take a couple picks if it comes with several highlight reel TD passes out of nothing. I wouldn't discourage Zach from stuff like that at all if I were the coaching staff.
I recall the announcers saying that and you are right it was very close to a TD. I would like to get a better look at it but it looked like a pretty tight window and after the INT before the half at Pitt I can't say I was excited to see that throw. One note too is the announcer said Zach stepped put, if true, then any TD would have been overturned. The other throw I hated was the sideline throw to G. Wilson. That ball could have been picked by Alexander. It was a poor decision and it looked like he might have thrown the ball late. we did not see the good Zach yesterday, being decisive, getting the ball out fast and throwing in rhythm. That was disappointing. He only had a couple of throws like that. The one to Davis and not sure other ones. I guess we should not overreact. It was one game and we should look at overall trends not static points. I was just hoping we might be able to move beyond performances like this. For me it was a frustrating and disappointing game by Zach. I am looking forward to watching the film reviews and see what people smarter than me have to say,
I disagree. The 2021 draft will never be a "D". Even if ZW busts out, it's still a solid haul. NFL Radio does a great segment every year. I forget what they call it, something like NICKS NUMBERS, but they go back and grade the draft from 4 years prior for every team. Their formula is quite simple. They look at the second contracts of the players received as their main focal point (years and money). They also factor in other things subjectively - impact the player has had and is he still on the original team. AVT will get a haul of a second contract. He is a pro bowl caliber player. This alone makes the draft a success. Moore has been enigmatic so far. But he is almost certainly getting a nice second contract. Both Michael Carters will get second contracts. The other guys? Who knows. I think Echols, Sherwood and Nasirildeen will bounce around for a few years. So yes. A lot of the Jets future success depends on ZW. But this draft, 2 more years from now, is a solid B at worst.
If this team finishes 9-8, I would not care less about the playoffs this year. I would be completely fired up for next season.
Oh, I completely agree. But it would be nice to start a reason with high expectations built on the foundation set by the prior season.
This turned into Noam bitching about Zach? Weak. Didn't throw a single 4q pass. And we win by 17. No turnovers. He was 4/4 as we went from tied to 24-10 he layed a poor half. But he wasn't missing guys who were pen.
I won't quite say it was a "good" throw - good from the standpoint of a good decision because in a close game had it been intercepted they would've lost at least 3 points since they were in FG range. That said, I do agree with you that from an athletic standpoint it was a great throw. And while it might not have been the "safe" play, it took a really good play from the defender to break it up. Also, there was another Jet receiver who was open coming into that area and Zach may have been thinking that one of them might be able to snag a pass thrown in that area. And the comparison to Favre (and Elway whom you didn't mention but IMO is the same comp) is apt. But those two suffered a lot of criticism early in the careers for being reckless. It was only later when that "recklessness" won big games that they were praised for it. In Zach's case I think the Jets are trying to get the benefit of Favre/Elway without the downside by limiting what he can do for most of the game, but they need to be careful they don't "Throw the baby out with the bathwater". Zach is very smart and he hates to make mistakes. They need to trust that he'll learn from his "recklessness" and it will only make him better.
While we usually agree, this time I don't. I do agree that he played a poor first half, but how much that was all Zach is debatable. But for the sake of argument I'll say he didn't play well. But then again, neither did the opposing sure-HOF QB either. In the 2nd half though he was like a different guy, being decisive, and running the offense as efficiently as it was dictated by MLF, and his passes were on target. Don't let the stats cloud your own eyes.
If they had stopped the game at the half, or benched Zach then, you could say "He played a terrible game". But neither of those things happened and he came out and played a completely different 2nd half. At a minimum, if he had continued to play like he did in the 1st half they wouldn't have won by 17 pts. going away
