I think it's at salehs discretion he doesn't want to. he wants the D to get a break and be fresh. some of our players on D play every snap. mosley, sauce, reed, Quincy, seem to play like 100% of the snaps and it wears you down just looked and the only teams with a worse TOP then us is pitt and NE. Were deal last in TOP on away games
his pocket awareness is one of the most improved traits this year. I feel like thats largely in part due to rodgers arrival. instead of spinning out backwards he keeps his eyes downfield and climbs the pocket. the issue is you can't climb with interior pressure, only edge pressure, thats why OTs are taught that if you are beat outside push them out to make their approach wider and the QB can step up past the danger
I disagree with your conclusion that because the offense is struggling it's pretty clear that it's just on the QB. That's the shallow, easy conclusion, but not totally accurate. Yes, Zach is part of the problem. He is still a work in progress rather than a finished product who consistently plays at a high level. That's frustrating, especially in a year where we had SB hopes. I totally get it. He isn't the ONLY problem, however. IMO to put all the blame on Zach shows a lack of understanding of the importance of having a quality OC and of having an offense that fits the talents of the QB, of the play of the OL, and of the play of the WRs. If Zach was rarely getting pressured, his OL was opening gaping holes for the rushing attack, Zach was still consistently wildly missing WRs, if the play design and play calling was great, if the WRs were almost always open and caught every ball that came their way, then yes, it would be totally Zach's fault, but that is far from the case. Zach IS showing improvement. He's standing in the pocket and taking hits while delivering passes, he's more in command of the offense, he's reading the D better, making quicker and better decisions most of the time, his accuracy is back, and he isn't crumbling under pressure. I think the point can be made that the rest of the offense is letting Zach down by committing stupid penalties that nullify good plays, receivers running wrong routes and dropping passes, the OL and TEs allowing Zach to be pressured on over 50% of his passing attempts, and to be hit countless times a game, by bad play design and predictable, conservative play calling by Hackett. To be certain, in the past Zach held the rest of the offense back. This year, however, the script has flipped. How is a QB supposed to get hot or in a groove with all the other mistakes around him which sabotage their efforts and he's under constant pressure? To make matters worse, he can't get a call from officials when he's taking an unnecessary beating by defenders, and is getting little/no help from his OC with regards to adjusting the offense or the play calling.
No…I didn’t say the offensive struggles are “just on the QB”…I agree our OL has struggled and that’s a huge part of it. But the QB drives the bus. Just the way it is. When you can’t get first downs, when you’re at the bottom of the league in time of possession and third down conversion rate, when you’re bottom of the league in red zone scoring, it’s bad. And while it’s not ONLY the QB’s fault, it IS a QB problem. Just the way it is.
1: You're correct, I have no idea what his progression is. If GW isn't Zach's 1st or 2nd read on almost every play, that might be more of a Hackett issue than a Zach one. I would like to hope that Zach realizes how special GW is and would "override" his progressions if it meant looking towards GW more but that's probably an unreasonable expectation on my part. 2: I'm not sure if I agree that he's looking to the left here. His eyes are relatively down the middle IMO which is where both MC and Lazard are. 3: Conklin is the player to the inside of Lazard on the trips side of the formation and appears to be wide open with a relatively open path to a first down. As I said though, this one isn't that egregious IMO because it appears Lazard is his primary read. Not gonna kill a QB for going with his primary read and throwing a good ball to him. 4: If Zach is worried about getting sacked, he shouldn't be in the NFL. Even the best OLs give up sacks on occasion. I've got no issue with him trying to make a play when nothing is there and he gets pressured but I feel like he's got another tick in that pocket and had he stayed in it, he could've tried to hit GW who broke open on his crosser a half a second after he decided to take off. However, maybe that's also an unreasonable ask from me. Everything you've said here is fair though and while I'd like to think I'm somewhat knowledgeable when it comes to football, I'm far from being a QB expert. I also don't know how the coaches are coaching Zach or what his progressions are on a given play. We can try to guess based off of where his head goes post-snap but is that him looking defenders away or is it him actually going through his progressions? Again, without being in those meeting rooms, we'll never know for sure. I'm just trying to point out things I see on tape that make sense. My main goal with these weekly Zach breakdowns was to consolidate the Zach discourse on this site. It still happens but prior to these threads it felt like every thread eventually got derailed and became a pissing match between the pro-Zach and anti-Zach groups. My hope was that we could all look at the "film" (mainly from the broadcast angle which isn't all that helpful but I try to throw in tweets of the All-22 when I see them) together and try to get a better understanding of what we see on Sundays from Zach. I try to be as objective as possible in these breakdowns though because I feel like I'm in a relatively unique position, I've been on both sides of the Zach discourse since he was drafted. While I probably fall more in the anti-Zach group for now, that doesn't mean that I don't want him to succeed. When he makes a good play, I call it out, when he makes a bad play, I call it out. I've really started to enjoy doing these breakdowns though and I feel like it might be something I try to do in perpetuity going forward. The thought of doing these type of breakdowns with Aaron Rodgers makes me very excited. Who knows, maybe one day I'll splurge on NFL+ and post these onto YouTube with the All-22 so you all can hear my lovely voice haha
It could be at Saleh's direction. In the past, I have blamed Saleh, but I now think it's quite likely all on Hackett. Hackett just seems stubborn, too conservative and can't break out of that. That's why we're not seeing the offense tailored more to Zach's strenghts such that we see more passing on 1st down, more screens and draw plays, rollouts to the right, and PA passes when the rushing attack is working. I would add in deep shots downfield, but with the way the OL has been blocking, that option has pretty much been removed unless Zach buys time by rolling out. Occasionally he does have clean pockets however and he looks downfield, but no one is open or he throws a dime and the ball is dropped. Also, how many 3 and outs have the Jets had playing this way? How much of a rest does that give the D? It would be better to go with a hurry-up offense, see them drive down the field and score a TD or even more FGs and take 2-5 minutes off the clock (or more) and that would give the D more rest than they're getting now, would tire out the opposing D, would put the Jets in the lead and enable our pass rushers to tee off on the opposing QB. If nothing else, it could give us the field position edge and make the opposing team's offense have to drive the length of the field in order to score, rather than only having to go 40-60 yards. The stats show that Zach plays better in a faster-paced offense and when he's throwing the ball on 1st down. IMO it's unrealistic to expect the offense to consistently have long, sustained drives, not with our OC and with our OL and all the mistakes/penalties/drops. The whole premise this year was that with Rodgers we'd likely have more 4th qtr leads and our fresh pass rushers could tee off on opposing QBs. That could still happen. He also could just do that early in the game, perhaps only in the 1st half or 1st 3 qtrs to build a lead, and then could revert to the traditional offense to try to take more time off the clock in the second half or 4th qtr.
1 thing I will point out that I noticed is every time the D is in single high (the last 2 games at least) ZW always looks to GW 1st.
I've thought this for a while now. Obviously we can't run hurry up for 60 minutes but I would like to see Hackett try to go hurry-up on a random drive in the 1st quarter soon just to see how it works.
I thought this was an interesting view on how another (more successful) organization is evaluating its QB. Packers GM unsure of Jordan Love's long-term future with the franchise https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id...unsure-jordan-love-long-term-future-franchise "I think we've got 10 games left. These are going to be very important 10 games." Packers GM Brian Gutekunst said wednesday in a press conference. Gutekunst described Love's play as "a little up and down." "Like our entire offense, right?" he said. "I think it's been a work in progress for the entire offense. There's been glimpses, particularly in the second halves, of really good football. But we have not started very well. So, I think that group, that unit as a whole has a lot of work to do." Love ranks last in completion rate (57.7%) among the 32 qualifying quarterbacks, just behind the Jets' Zach Wilson (58.3%). The Packers rank 25th in total yards per game and 21st in passing yards per game.
As he should. I'd be looking at GW first on almost every snap if I were Zach. Though that's probably why I'm not an NFL QB....among a long list of other reasons lol
he wasn't conservative in GB as an OC and he wasn't conservative in Den as a HC despite russ playing poorly. Not to mention salehs gametime decisions like kicking the FG on 1st down in OT (most coaches opt for 3rd down in that situation) and rarely going for it on 4th down no matter how short it is, it really seems the direction is coming from saleh. Of course this is all an "educated guess" based on what we do know, but w/o being in the room with them nobody can 100% confirm it. However it does seem the most likely thing. Rex did the same with sanchez and the offense but was more open about it. the whole "green/yellow/red" system he made for sanchez. the goal was to play D and run the ball and let the D win it. Only let the QB loose when there is 0 other options. this team feels alot like those rex years. Rodgers was brought in to make our offense actually go but with the injury were back to square 1. You seen the giants do it too. devito came in and threw 3 passes before the half and then at halftime they clearly decided no more passing. In theory the hurry up would only make the offensive 3 and out even shorter on TOP.
well in theory it should be second to pull the single high safety away. IDK if you ever seen the show billions (good show though) and on one scene he was explaining the finical moves like a football game and playing QB on "how many steps away are you from the idiot" pretty good scene on how teams try to counter each other. probably can find the scene online somewhere
First and foremost, I love that you do these and appreciate the effort. I'm learning a lot from these posts and the ensuing discussions. I know that you're being fair, objective, and unbiased. I know that isn't always easy, and I appreciate your effort in that regard. 1. With regards to GW, I'm pretty sure that Zach realizes how special GW is, and I think that is borne out by how often Zach's passes go to GW. 2. You could be right that he's looking more towards the middle. It's hard to tell from that camera angle. 3. I intend my following remarks on this play to be helpful, not critical. I'm sorry but telling me who was inside of Lazard on the trips side of the formation is not very helpful, when we're looking at a static picture of the play after the ball is snapped, not a video of the whole play. That's why I included comments about the yard line and hashmark to clarify. It would be helpful if you did the same. It's too cumbersome to have to go back to the video of every throw in the game and scroll to the precise point where the play begins. 4. I think that you're mistaken if you don't think that every QB in the NFL isn't thinking or worrying about getting hit and/or sacked. No one wants to get consistently pounded, and especially seeing what happened to Rodgers and many other QBs when they have been sacked, it has to be in every other QBs' mind. We all have seen what happened to Brady when he was hit/sacked a lot. He got totally off his game, as every QB does when hit often enough. I wasn't talking about the occasional sack or hit. Yes, those happen and are part of the game, but not the pounding that Zach has been taking this year and that he took his rookie year, and to some extent last year. I think you're very knowledgeable regarding football and I respect your takes. I think you're fair and interesting, and as I said earlier, I invariably learn something in the discussion. That's why I like these breakdowns so much. I may not always agree with every point you make, but I think that you are always being fair. We just see things differently on those points. I think your intention to try to keep all the Zach discussion in this thread was a good one, albeit possibly naive. We ALL know that unfortunately, no thread stays pure. Posters consistently interject off-topic posts into every thread, and when a number of posters don't like a Coach or player, negative comments appear about that player or coach in every thread. We all ought to be more respectful of the OP's thread and stay on topic, but for whatever reason, we can't.
You make good points, but I hasten to point out that in GB and Denver, Hackett had proven quality veteran QBs running his offense. I know that Rodgers had carte blanche to change plays, and I have to assume (although that may be mistaken) that Wilson did too. So part of the reason that Hackett wasn't conservative there is he had QBs that were developed and had been topnotch. They weren't QBs who were still learning and developing and how had played abysmally his first 2 years. So his offense in GB and Denver are not at all the same situation as with the Jets in that he probably was more aggressive himself, and his QBs were free to call audibles and be more aggressive as well. In addition, he was HC in Denver, and didn't have all the talent there that the Jets have. He didn't have the luxury of trying to win games on D solely. You may be right about Saleh. I have felt that way, and I'm not sure why my thoughts/feelings on that changed. It does feel a lot like when Rex was HC. If it is Saleh, then Hackett needs to find a way to get Saleh to relax and open things up more. It may take the D failing in a game or two for that to happen, however.
you make a point but if you go even further back when he had shit QBs (bortles, ej manuel) he wasn't conservative there either. there was 1 year people believed bortles would be a good QB, robinson was a top WR in the NFL and hurns was a top tier WR2. they looked the part for 1 year with hackett as OC. except bortles was out of the league a year after hackett was gone, hurns did nothing after and neither did robinson really
You don't have to go back to the Sanchez years... just go back to the end of last season. It's obvious the approach and offensive scheme that they're using just ain't working. Leaning on defense only gets us so far... still gotta outscore the opponent. 20 points a game... two td's & two field goals... we'd be stacking wins and still talking about how Zach sucks...
I think Wilson has done every boneheaded thing there is except run out the back of the end zone for a safety
