I don't know what game you guys watched on Sunday but I saw the one where Wilson repeatedly dropped back and just threw it up for grabs. Two of the passes were throws that no starting QB in the league would have let go of.
Who's defending Wilson's game on Sunday? It seems like the vast majority of our fans acknowledge it was awful. Regarding the second line - we started a QB the last three seasons who routinely made throws like Wilson did on Sunday. That same QB is still currently starting in the league. Lawrence has also made several of those throws already in his career. I'm not defending Wilson's play on Sunday, it was really bad. We're drawing way too many conclusions from a two game sample size though.
I think, excuse me, I hope the 4th pick was a miscommunication error with a WR. It’s the only one I don’t have a rational explanation for. The others I can at least talk myself into some kind of an excuse.
If Zach is as smart and as much of a film junkie as he’s reported to be, this might end up being a blessing in disguise. He has to understand you cannot just throw balls up in the air in the NFL and hope they somehow get caught. Along with LaFleur’s play calling (which I think has been rough these first two weeks) I think / hope we’ll see Zach quickly work things out. It’s just a shame his team mates and us fans are gonna have to go through these growing pains with him. Especially against the Deflateriots
Don't worry, you will be proved wrong! Sam doesn't have nearly the talent and ability that Zach does. You're correct with your first sentence, however. Not only, that but in the 1st game most of his throws were checkdowns. It appears that Sam is getting very good coaching, but has still only played one quality half in each of those two games, and is still making stupid decisions.
I honestly believe that if McCaffery goes down, Darnold is royally screwed. Not because he lost a weapon but because the entire offense is built on him handing the ball off to McCaffery or checking down to him. Robby Anderson has 4 catches. DJ Moore has 14 catches. Terrace Marshall has 6 catches. McCaffery has 14 catches with 44 carries. All power to him now that he has that luxury, but let's not act like Darnold is tearing it up throwing it all over the field to every WR on his roster.
legler. There is a reason I am a big fan of you. That's what I saw yesterday at the game. Zach looks like he belongs. He had a bad game but that's it. Something inside him was forcing him to be bold and careless and you are explaining it pretty good up here. The kid will be special. I have zero doubt. He is a film junkie they say. Then this game will probably benefit him a lot in the long term. My big gripe is about LeFleur. Wish we went with a more experienced OC in a season where we have a rookie HC and rookie QB. What do you see from LeFleur so far?
Funny because I think the same regarding the tape. I think this game needed to happen for Wilson to humble himself and see how bad he actually was. It's very easy when everything is going well, but games like he had on Sunday are needed for him to evaluate his mistakes and learn how to fix them. I fully trust that Zach will bounce back from this next week. He needs to understand that we don't need him to be exciting right now. We need him to be efficient and protective with the football. Take what the defense gives you and methodically move the ball down the field. Punting is not the worst thing in the world. If there is one guy I trust to make the necessary changes, it's him.
The bold is a very short-sighted organizational move. You can live with it if you bring in a more experienced head coach, but we went with the all rookie everything idea with no other NFL quarterback on the roster which in retrospect seems kind of silly. LaFleur's play calling has been meh. I'd like to see some runningback screens and some jet sweeps and stuff that they did to make Happy Feet Jimmy comfortable. I do like the deep set play action plays though.
That's why I didn't really understand the whole "seeing what I can get away with" statement in camp. That just creates bad habits. He looked like he played the same way last week.
The Jets need to use the same style of play that Belichick and McDaniels used against the Jets. Conservative - designed to make the decision-making easier for the rook and move the ball methodically down the field. "Boring", as Saleh called it. The whole gunslinger mentality of LeFleur and Zach must be put on the back burner until this offense develops some consistency.
Yep, they can be conservative without being cowardly. As far as Belichick goes, even with Brady, he called a pretty conservative offense. With the exception of the Randy Moss years, the Patriots have never been aggressive on offense. They always won by death from a thousand cuts.
Even going back to the Carolina game I was a bit surprised at how much LeFleur put on Zach's shoulders. I was OK with ZW starting the season b/c I though (for sure) Saleh would NOT allow leFleur to call for 40+ drop backs his very first game. I thought for sure we'd rely on the run game. If the the run game wasn't there....oh well. But no....they had Zach dropping back over and over like a 10 year vet, putting the game on his shoulders even while he was getting turned into hamburger. The second game I have no answers for other than Zack was NOT gonna get sacked and hit 20 more times. He was launching the rock almost as soon as it hit his hands, even when the oline was actually giving him time.
I'm not worried about Zach. I am worried about the play calling and the coaching he's getting. The kid was a "gunslinger" in college and had success, but that won't work - at least against good teams, and certainly not at this point in his career. Maybe after he gets some more experience and his mind and body learn the speed of the pro game, maybe then he can start polishing up his six guns, but that's where I fault the coaching too: they should've known and expected him to take risks and made sure he knew to not do that. That said, I don't want them to clamp down on him completely, but if they gave him a game plan that was more "QB friendly" and he saw success in running those types of plays, he would rein himself in. People were complaining that he didn't check down more, but on those INT plays, there might have been only one of them that had a receiver that could be considered a "check down", and that was on the 2nd INT to Davis on the sideline that he let slip through his hands. That's poor play design, and seems like LaFleur is putting too much responsibility and trust on Zach's arm to make those down field throws. Finally, to me, he seemed like he didn't have the same zip on the ball at times, like he was "short arming" it. I hope that's not an indication that he got hurt last week in Carolina. If he's the student of the game he's reported to be - and I think he is - he'll find a lot to dissect and learn from in this game and be better for it.
I dunno...so far Zach has looked to me like a boy among men. His last two picks were terrible throws under no pressure. I suspect he will take nearly every snap this year, much like Browning Nagle (7 TDS 17 INTs) in 1992. So far Nagle is who Wilson has reminded me off--big arm, but poor judgment and poor throws. We are all hoping he gets better.
IDK Tom, without going back and looking at the film (which I'm too tired to do right now), I seem to recall that at least on that 4th pick he had a pass rusher about to nail him. Maybe he just chucked up for grabs, but given that he has always been pretty accurate, that seems unlikely. More likely somebody was supposed to be in that area but wasn't. The more sound thing for him to have done is to toss it out of bounds, and I believe he'll come to learn that. As to his "poor judgment and poor throws", IDK what you're watching but I don't see that at all. A few questionable decisions, maybe, a few bad throws, but for the most part, he's done pretty well considering. We'll probably just have to AGTD.
After reflecting for a few days I think the biggest problem with Zach's game Sunday is that mentally/fan support/moral/media wise I think we've now moved onto thin ice. I'm not so much concerned about Zach himself and his ability but if things don't go well next week negative stuff might start to snowball a little bit out of control. And obviously that would be sub optimal.... and make it that much harder to get things back to happy days. So I'm afraid now the stakes are a little bit higher than they theoretically should be for these next couple upcoming games. I hope we can pull off a respectable rebound vs the Broncos somehow. It seems like a good move to lock it down and get really conservative but at the same time I wonder about that because a Farvey swashbuckling gunslinger seems like its going to ultimately be more than a little part of Zach's game and I'm a little bit worried about squashing that too badly too soon. Its all a fine line I guess.
Sitting here now that the nerves and anger have cooled down, I am much more at ease with this whole situation. Zach Wilson had a piss poor performance, but watching the film and listening to the press conference, I am in a good place with all of this. Wilson's play came down to two things: 1. Horrible play calling. 2. Bad route running. 1. Horrible play calling. Lafleur has to put Wilson in a better position to be successful. Mac Jones and Billichick is a perfect example of this, as much as I hate to say that. Lafleur needs to call better plays that can help build confidence as the game progresses. This team is good at two things, running the football and playing defense. Use this to your advantage. Call plays that have a higher chance of success and seperate the wide receivers. Bunching up guys in one part of the field is not going to lead to a positive outcome. This much was proven on Sunday. 2. Bad route running. It needs to be said, the route running was dog shit on Sunday. Davis stopping mid route, Moore running the opposite way, etc. It was not a good look. I fully expect this out of a guy like Moore but I do not expect this from a guy like Davis. Our receivers need to be better on their routes. The only receiver that continues to impress is Berrios. This needs to be the standard across the board. Having said this, I fully expect the adjustments to be made for Denver. I think this game needed to happen. I think this is going to be a wakeup call for Zach, for Lafleur, and for Saleh. They needed to be punched in the mouth to realize that they need to be better collectively. We learned a lot in week 2 about this squad and their abilities, but one thing that stood out was the ability of the coaching staff to make adjustments. The offensive line was a problem in week 1. Adjustments were made and they played well in week 2. Adjustments need to be made and Lafleur needs to look in the mirror and figure out why he failed his rookie QB. I'm looking forward to Denver. I think we will see a much better team next weekend.
It looks like the defense has adopted that mentality with lots of safety help over the top. That's one of the reasons (as well as having baby linebackers at 2/3 spots), we got gashed on the ground last week. I've always been a fan of that defensive play style, and it's only possible with a really good free safety that New England has had in Devin McCourty (HOF in my book). Marcus Maye has a similar play style and simply does not allow big plays.
