Well that confirms what many suspected....that MLF is a douche. I totally get him being frustrated with Wilson but you can't go around bad mouthing him. I'm also starting to suspect that Mims and Moore were in MLF's doghouse.
OK, let's say all, or any of this is true, if MLF was complaining about Zach, the way he schemed the O was undoubtedly effected by his mindshat, & thus, it makes sense everything was designed for his imaginary QB, & not to help Zach succeed. It never occurred to MLF that maybe his genius plan, was designed for the other QBs, & he should alter it for Zach. The worst thing, if any of this is true, Saleh should've fired him then. MLF was undermining the success of the team. Furthermore, if you add the MW T-shirts, trade requests, Xmas costumes, etc, either Saleh was not tuned into his team, or just ignored all the crap going on MLF's side of the ball. Leaves me hoping (yeah right), that Woody/JD are quietly reaching out to Harbaugh, & Payton, & replacing Saleh is still in the mix. .
The article confirmed some stuff for me personally. 1) MLF could scheme an offense but was not good with being adaptive - both in terms of playcalling and people management. 2) Zach Wilson was everything we feared while watching him in real time - a quarterback so terrible that his mere presence as the starter created locker room problems. 3) Robert Saleh, for all the progress he made with his coaching acumen on the field with the team this year, was completely out of his depth in dealing with the friend he hired and the golden boy quarterback he publicly anointed both needing to be managed, and blew the whole thing with the way he handled it.
Really nothing new reported here. Except this one section that seems to have not been, at least on this forum: "Meanwhile, Zach Wilson sought to find the “fun” in football again. He called some former NFL quarterbacks who hit rough patches early in their careers for advice: Kurt Warner, Drew Brees and Young. Warner told The Athletic that he “enjoyed” talking to Wilson and getting to know him, though he wanted to keep their conversation private. He did say that Wilson’s willingness to make those calls is a positive sign. “I think there’s a lot of things to learn when you’re open to believing you still have something to learn, and areas you can grow,” Warner said. “I respect him a lot for reaching out and listening … (but) it’s one thing to reach out and listen, and it’s another thing to be willing to do what it takes to change.” Contrary to the narrative that Zach isn't willing to listen to advice, it's clear that he did reach out for advice from QBs who experienced struggles early in their career. That said, as Warner notes: "...it’s one thing to reach out and listen, and it’s another thing to be willing to do what it takes to change.” Since this reaching out happened late in the season and Zach only had one more start IIRC, it's hard to know if he took this advice to heart and will be doing absolutely everything he can to succeed and win his job back. We'll get more evidence one way or the other over the coming months.
Thanks for posting. That was a well done article. Not great to read if you are a Zach Wilson fan. As @Snatch Catch said: It confirms all of our fears about Zach. Makes you wonder if he really should be on this roster or not. I still believe he can succeed in the NFL (and on the Jets) but if most of the locker room doesn't like him, and they truly were excited for a journeyman 3rd string QB to take over, that is a bad look. Even in the Jaguars game the offense looked more excited with Streveler at QB. That is unfortunate. The other thought I have though, is maybe Zach is not meant for this kind of offense. Many of us thought he was a perfect fit in the draft process, but clearly he was not. Mike LaFleur did not adjust the offense enough for Zach or for most of his players to succeed. It truly was the perfect storm of bad QB play, injuries, play calling, and lack of adjustments that made this offense brutally bad in 2022. There is upside to it for 2023. Just have to hire the right person at OC and find the right QB.
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/report-elijah-moore-blew-mike-174855230.html Moore was benched for blowing up at LeFluer.
Confidence is a crazy thing and when you hit that low point it is hard to get out of it. It does not help when the guy you need to help you is keeping you at arm's length. Sounds like a tough road for Zach he will have to have a very good off-season and an OC that believes him.
IDK if "most of the locker room doesn't like him" just by reading that article. It's clear that he pissed up a bunch of players with his comments after the Pats loss, but he did apologize to them afterwards. Some no doubt held a grudge, but most probably got back to focusing on their own job. But it sure didn't help that LaFleur was apparently running him down in front of everyone, and openly campaigning for a QB change and being at least tacitly okay with the "Mike F'n White" t-shirts, etc. Zach might not be good enough to be a FQB, or even a backup, but none of what MLF did was helpful to his development. I think that's why he was asked to leave. And as I've said before, Saleh's job may not be safe either for knowing what LaFleur was doing and not stopping it.
Agreed. Makes me even more mad at LaFleur and Saleh for how Zach has been handled. Disappointing, really. Both of those coaches are so stubborn and rarely adjust if needed. That is not how you win. As for most of the locker room not liking him, I just mean to the point they prefer another QB under center. We all witnessed how the offense looks better with any QB not named Zach Wilson running it. I still don't quite understand why, but it definitely was noticeable. Can that be fixed? Can the locker room rally around Zach again? Yes. He just has to show he has improved and can play at a high level. That won't be easy. In fact, I think the best way to do that is to be the #2 QB this season. Watch and learn. Show your improvements in practice. If/When the QB1 struggles, do your teammates look to you as they did Mike White? Could happen.
Occam's Razor suggests the simplest answer is the real one: Zach Wilson is worse than all the other QB's that have played for the Jets the last two years of whom none were considered to be good QB's.
I agree. Zach has a lot of work to do to earn the trust of his teammates at this point, and being QB#2 is probably the best way to do that. And I believe if he does do that, the team will get behind him as evidenced by how they responded in the Steelers game when he challenged them to "man up" and they came from behind to win. Sadly, as the article points out, that was the high point. And there's another point that hasn't been talked about that was touched on in that article: the MLF offense if pretty complicated, at least for younger players. To put a finer point on this, it doesn't matter how "brilliant" your schemes are if too many players can't execute them properly, and there were more than just Zach apparently that struggled with this. So, it may not be a case of Zach being too dumb, or learning disabled, to learn an NFL offense, of may have been more a case of him struggling to learn this offense. And while many have said, "Well it worked fine under other QBs", it sure didn't work fine at the end of the season as they could find the EZ and lost 6 straight.
Yup the stubbornness (probably ego driven given how he buried the players who dared question him) was my biggest gripe with LaFleur. Had no ability to adapt to the players and just stubbornly did the same thing thinking it would magically work. I don’t think Saleh is the same in terms of stubbornness. His is more a loyalty to people stubbornness than an unwillingness to adapt. Not that that’s a good thing but for a football coach it’s probably a better one to have.
Sounds like the players were revolting against MLF more than Zach and MLF then pointed the finger at Zach and in the meantime killing his confidence. Young Qbs struggle just look at Trevor, sucked the first half against the chargers and even Herbert struggled that game. Of course, you dumb down an offense for young QBs. Zach was playing to do not make mistakes and showed, as several posters pointed out we now know it to be true. When he did make a mistake he was buried by the coaches which killed his confidence and made the situation worse. Douzable was talking about the Jags that he rewatched and said Zach played fine in the first quarter, made a mistake all downhill from there.
I'm not sure I would take it that way. I bet plenty were upset with what they felt was lousy play from Wilson.
I'll stand by that opinion about many of the Jets games with Zach in 2022, but definitely the Patriots game in New England, trying to play safe and mistake free is the worst way to play football. I hated the strategy that day, and as I posted all that week, I knew it was coming and it would fail. And that is exactly what happened. Saleh decided to bank on his defense, but that is not how football works. You need to be aggressive. And the Jets should be. They have a good defense. Let Zach throw it. If he throws an INT, hold the opponent to a punt or 3 points. Playing scared or afraid to mess up just doesn't work. Not only that, but it ruined Zach's mindset and confidence. It was a mess.
