This is a QB driven league. Have a great QB? Then you have a chance of greatness every single season. Don’t have a great QB? Then you’re looking at a model where you continuously have to win games vie defense and running. It certainly might net you some success, but come playoff time you’re gonna face offenses that easily put up 30+ points and you have to be able to keep up with it. I was on record well before the draft that I was not a fan of drafting ZW. I didn’t care for Darnold at all, but I didn’t feel any QB in last year’s draft was worth investing 3 years into, and I felt just by odds alone the following year would give us better options. I was wrong about that obviously as this year’s draft prospects were even worse. That said I still think trading out of #2 was the right move. I prefer KC/SF’s approach where they built the team, THEN drafted the QB. A guy like ZW is so far behind on the basics of the NFL game. He has all the physical tools but mentally he doesn’t process what he sees in time to make and execute the proper throw to the proper receiver. A QB who is behind on the mental game needs to have one of two things- stellar talent around him (especially OL) to protect him and give him really good open looks, or the QB needs to be a physical freak that can use his physicality to win games while learning the mental game. This would be the likes of Allen or Jackson. Wilson has the ability to run, but unlike Allen and Jackson he does not have the body to take the hits those guys do. I would have traded down from 2, drafted heavily on OL and playmakers and tried to secure a middling QB to hold the fort. Someone the likes of Bridgewater or Dalton. Let them take the beatings of the growing pains, and they are both still young enough that maybe they turn it around and if they don’t you’re not losing sleep when you move on from them. But taking a guy like Zach who needs massive development and putting him out there day one with a sketchy OL and no playmakers is a recipe for disaster. He’s no longer learning, he’s playing in a panicked blur. It’s literally the formula for just about every busted QB ever. Draft him too high, start him too soon, force him out there with inferior/inexperienced players all around. Rinse and repeat.
I’m concerned and I loved the pick when we made it. He is def missing way too many easy/ wide open throws I’ve watched every game this year and actually made tons of money off my Jets because I believed in them. But ZW is the one not so bright spot for me so far. I don’t agree w Simms and I’m happy we are winning. I just don’t think ZW should be missing some of the throws he is. Not sure how anyone who’s been watching can say he’s been average at all. I’m not gonna let the winning cloud my judgement and what my eyes are seeing. It’s not good and I’m looking forward to him stepping up and proving me wrong soon
Zach is fine. Imagine how these fans would act if the Jets had lost 4 in a row and he threw 2 INT each game? Yikes! One thing I will say is I don't use the Packers pass defense or the Broncos pass defense as an excuse for Zach. It's more the game plan and what was asked of Zach those two weeks. He had a couple close calls in Denver with that would be fumble lost and then throwing up that one ball when he should have just thrown it away, but besides that he played mostly safe. The Jets will open things up for him. Winning is what matters to this team though, not stats. (Well, the whole team besides Elijah Moore, I should say)
Good call out. This season has been the best in years and I’m sure as hell enjoying it but winning doesn’t put coaches or players above criticism. If it did it would mean mistake free football is being played in every phase by every player on every down. That pretty much never happens. Everyone wants Wilson to succeed. Some of us just want more evidence that he will and there’s nothing wrong with that.
zack has def improved in some ways from last year, but he is still isnt hitting enough of the layups. against denver: his first two attempts were not even close. he missed behind berrios over the middle, behind GW on an out, behind mims on a slant, and CJ badly over the middle. most of these were from clean pockets. there was another play where we called screens to both sides of the field. a bronco LB gave away that he was blitzing early. if zack picked up on that and threw to the screen behind the blitz, we had a HUGE play set up. he also had like four throw aways that i didnt count because they were actually good plays
Just because the "winning window opened a bit sooner" doesn't mean that Wilson's development should've somehow kept pace. Playing QB in the NFL is perhaps the hardest single job in pro sports. Even with that, Zach IS developing and improving. But I think people's expectations that Zach be improving at the same pace as the rest of the team are unrealistic. It would be great if he suddenly takes a big leap this week, but if he continues doing what he's done, and they win, that means he's continuing to improve while at the same time leading the team to victory.
IMO, Like him or not, putting his big mouth and selling approach aside, on this issue he is spot on. We don't have to go very far to see who the target audience is. just yesterday the same subset of fans and media was on JDs ass about not been a very good GM. As always selecting one piece of data in a vacuum and trying to build a negative case . Now, overwhelmed by positive results, with every expert analyst and prior GM praising him for his uncanny capability to draft and trade at the best value for this team its time to move on from that embarrassingly wrong viewpoint.. Now enter Zach, the next target of opportunity for the same fans to criticize, since he is struggling more, executing under a more conservative CS game plan, while the rest of the team is playing lights out and there is fuck all they can talk about that. Yes, the same Jet team than was given zero chance by these fans, but hell forget that now. I didn't see many of them came forth with a thread of congratulations for the win, or kudos for the unbelievable effort under some tough circumstances, hell no. Lets just put all the negative energy on our QB that is not progressing to their liking fast enough, using selective clips of missing open receivers, some of them accurate, some of them completely out of context. Is he struggling to make quick reads under pressure, yes we know that, is he overthinking it, yes, does he have much of a clean pocket, hell no, but apparently that doesn't matter for a youngster still learning the game, can he do better, hell yes. But to say that Zach has done nothing to help this team and more to hurt him is utter, painful and absolute BS. I quite frankly wonder if some posters are actually watching the game, every game, every play, or just surfing the net afterwards to find something to criticize. In the past I use to say the fans deserve better that what we got. . Now the roles have completely reversed.
At the beginning of the year "Simms Top 40 QB Rankings" was a big deal in fan world. He ranked Zach 22 out of 40, two spots ahead of Lawrance, 3 spots ahead of Hurts, and 11 spots ahead of Geno.
Correct. I was one of them. Jd hasn’t been perfect but he’s been pretty damn good. This year’s draft was out of sight. That said JD was a well groomed prospect as a GM, working under one of the best in the game in BAL and a SB winning franchise in PHI. He had a pedigree and from day one till now he’s improved. Zach has no pedigree. He came from a non competitive school and was a flash in the pan for one season there. He nearly lost the starting job in TC his final season at BYU. The reason he wasn’t named captain his final season was because they weren’t sure he’d even be the starter. His physical skills are off the charts I completely agree, and when you only look through that lens it’s easy to fall in love with him. But the red flags were about as red as they get, and the only thing Zach has improved on is not turning the ball over. The irony is his turnovers went down because he’s obviously been coached to be conservative. The same coaches his supporters want to blame for his failures. MLF has designed some amazing plays that have guys getting open based on design. Zach doesn’t process the field fast enough to execute them. I think Joe D did look ahead at future QB prospects. I think he saw the likes of Pickett in this most recent draft and realized that he was better off rolling his dice with Zach. But he’s also built a team strong enough that he can withstand Zach not panning out without losing his job over it.
They are still here and crying for attention. They have just temporarily switched issues. Although one of the lunatics did take a shot at JD yesterday blaming him for drafting AVT and Hall because they went on IR. The bottomline is they will never be happy. If we win the superbowl they will complain we did not win by enough. It is impossible to have discussions with people that don't want to discuss but just tell us how smart they think they are.
I guess I'm just not seeing the development some are. He looks like post-injury Zach from last year. Taking care of the ball, and not being the reason the Jets lose. In his defense, that's all the Jets need from him right now. I was just expecting a bigger jump in development. Clearly my expectations are a little higher than maybe they should be. Having said that, its only been four games. He has plenty of time to change my mind. The two toughest pass defenses he's going to play are in the rearview mirror. I'm looking forward to seeing what he has in him this latter half of the season.
I love this description. It's the first time I've seen it so you get the credit. We now live in a battle for content creation, thus everything should be taken with a shrug rather than it being a front page headline. I agree with the rest of your comment too.
Let me add this: Chris Simms has been a big supporter of Zach even before we picked him, so part of it is him sticking to his guns. He's doubling down.
I think with Geno it’s a maturity thing. He has matured he’s what now 32? He’s turned into a decent QB. The Jets of course got tired of waiting plus his shenanigans. But he is what he is now a decent but not great starter.
To me the most concerning thing with Zach is that even when he makes a completion the ball usually is not in the right location.
