I defend Zach and I am a big fan of Zach, but this is how the NFL works. A lot does ride on Zach Wilson. He was the #2 overall pick. Chosen there to be a franchise QB, who can lead the Jets to success. He knows what he signed up for. I think he can handle it, but at the same time, the team needs to build around him. Too much does ride on the QB, but if he gets the right help, it will make life much easier for him. And if he succeeds, it will make life much easier for Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh. It's a team sport. It is all connected. I like the path the Jets are on right now, but they have to keep it going!
Anyone thinking the Jets can close the talent gap with the AFCE inside of 2 years is vaping the really good shit. The good thing about losing for over a decade is that fans may be sick of the losing, but they are used to the losing. If you can lower expectations far enough, you buy time for your plan to come together so, '24-25 probably would be a safe season to expect competitive football. Zach, Saleh and his CS won't be rookies anymore and JD will have a few drafts in. If not, its nothing we haven't seen before. We're at a point so low that anything we get is upside. Wilson improves in '22? great. If not, oh well. Just another season in Jet Land.
I have to believe the decision to draft Wilson was Saleh's, with input from Douglas of course. Remembering from when Saleh was first hired, he said very positive things about Darnold. It makes more sense that the decision to move on from Darnold was Saleh's and that's how it should be. Ultimately what happens on the field is the coach's responsibility. Can't remember a situation where a team, after a poor season, fired the GM and kept the coach except for the Jets when they fired Maccagnan and kept Gase but that was not long lived.
I think you mean the opposite. The decision was definitely Douglas', with Saleh having some input. I believe Douglas and the Jets decided to move on from Sam before Saleh was even interviewed. Joe Douglas is not a very good GM if it takes him 5 years to create a competitive football team. They will be competitive in 2022. I've said it before, the Jets were (1-15) in 1996. Then Parcells took over in 1997 and they went (9-7). Then in 1998 they went (12-4) and went to the AFC Championship Game. (1-15) to (12-4) in 2 years. So don't say the Jets can't even compete until 2024. That would be outrageous and confirm they hired the wrong man for the job.
You mean like most of our team? Kamara is a great back that played on a team last year with nothing at QB. Also he a great receiver. Do you honestly think that Carter is a #1 back?
You have to believe in your timeframe or the idea Douglas/Saleh regime as a viable one crashes. I disagree. I think the talent gap between the Jets and the rest of the division is too vast to fix inside of 3 years considering it took 10 years to dig this hole. You'll see spurts between now and '24 but this team's roster is still a long way from being competitive with the successful teams on a consistent basis. We'll luck up every now and then and win a game we should lose. We'll also lose games that we should win. Such is how life goes for an almost expansion level roster and CS. We are not even in the same continent as the Chiefs, Bills, Rams and other perennial contenders. 10 years of shit leadership and a distinct lack of how to build a roster contributes to the gulf. JD finishes his 6 year deal. Saleh most likely finishes his contract as well. Jets slowly will return to being relevant eventually. Just not in '22-23.
Because we're talking about the Jets, I can conceive of it happening that way. However, I can't conceive of a coach agreeing to come to a team with an unsettled QB situation and told which QB he has to win with. If he did agree to those terms, then he has to own the Wilson decision. The chain of performance is Douglas-Saleh-Wilson. I'm not huge fan of Douglas. He's made some mistakes, but it's crazy to look at Wilson's performance, skip over Saleh, and point the finger at Douglas.
I can see that you do not, but not sure what you failed to see in Carter that didn't show he can be #1 back given all he had to work with. As for Kamara you may or may not have also noticed the lack of a quality QB at the Jets, he dropped from 16 rushing TD's to 4, I never said he wasn't a good pass catcher either, I mean everybody knows what he has done in the past and that therein was the point of my post, in the past. We rarely hit a big-money free agent signing out of the park and is there anything worse than an RB that has been pounded into the ground all his career, the drop off his huge and a little unpredictable. So like I said, not for me, he is either at his peak or just about to drop off the edge, if he comes here he will drop off the edge that is the Jets way.
I think the Jets need to have better than Mike White in camp as competition for Wilson. They need a vet who is not already on the edge of retirement as Flacco is. A guy like Gardner Minshew or Nick Foles - a real challenge to Wilson that says clearly "if you screw up you're losing the starting job." The guy has to be a viable 16 game starter if Wilson is not ready to go next season. Zach Wilson needs that kind of pressure at this point in his career. If he folds to it, well he'd fold on the field anyway. If he actually plays well enough to fight off the challenge, well that's a huge positive. Absent that kind of challenge we're more likely to get a repeat of last season that anything else. Even if Zach improves by 10-15% he is still not an NFL QB. He needs to make a leap in performance to get the Jets anywhere and he isn't going to do that with a couple of backups as his only challengers. The Jets, BTW, did this to themselves. When they sat White after the blowout loss to the Bills (a loss replicated by Zach at the end of the season - just by surrender instead of catastrophe) they also took him out of any serious consideration for 2022. If he couldn't stay on the field after Zach's early season issues there's no reason to believe the Jets will give him a real opportunity now. Zach knows this and will not be worried going into camp - definitely not worried enough to get his competitive instincts flowing.
It's really a team effort and the effort is often reflected in QB stats. Of course, a big part of that effort is the QB himself. I'm not too worried. I like the progress the team made during the 2021 season and that includes the D. They showed real improvement in the last 2 games with many injuries and against two really strong offenses. I think that improvement was meaningful and will carry over into next season.
I agree there are question marks with Zach but I think many of them are mental. Lets look at his season. Week 1 our line had trouble gelling and Zach paid a high price for it. Probably the 3 worst hits he took all season were in that game. That was a tough first start. But he endured and the next week came out slinging, and throwing 4 ints. Even after our line struggled week 1, and continued to struggle, we still sent him out against NE with a complicated and to aggressive game plan, against the rookie QB ruiner BB no less. This was a bad idea and really turned the heat up on him. Now he had 6 ints in two games and the chatter was beginning. The next few games Zach, and the line, flashed a little but mostly continued to struggle until his injury. He goes down injured with the most INTs in the league. Its talked about a lot and his seat had already gotten pretty hot by that time. Then Mike White comes in and throws for 400 yards and has the team chanting his name in the locker room. He is a hero for a week, media story, etc. This would massively turn up the heat on Zach, or anyone in that situation. Add to this the fact that Johnson and Flacco also played strong games and the pressure is really mounting for him to improve. Especially regarding INTs. So Zach returns with a lot of pressure and plays much more conservative, and better. Not world beating better. But an improvement. However, its clear that mental pressures are a factor in his game play now. He is no longer playing loose or taking chances. Everything is conservative and calculated. It even seems to affect his accuracy. Again, there is some improvement here, until the last game - which showed us what a head case he had become. Against Buffalo he was very conservative and struggled against a good defense. The problem is that in the 4th quarter when were down 24-10 he never adapted. Even with the game slipping away he continued to play conservative and not take chances downfield. He continually looked for the outlet or held the ball too long. And - it was almost like the coaches agreed with that. This says that everyone was more concerned with Zach not turning the ball over than winning the game. Thus our priority was no longer winning but protecting Zach's confidence. The Buffalo game became a psychological coddle that was on a Sam Darnold level. This annoyed me because I don't want him to remind me of Sam. And, much of this reeks of classic Jet QB ruining. We destroy their mind before we destroy their body - or sometimes both simultaneously. However, the facts still remain. Zach does have the arm and the ability to play much better. The question becomes how the coaches can mentally prepare him, and clear out the clutter in his head that accumulated this season. He has to be confident enough to throw the ball and take chances without worrying so much about the consequences. Some of this fix will be on Zach to overcome, some will be on the GM surround him with the right help, and some will be on the coaching to prepare and gameplan correctly according to his development. What will happen is anyone's guess. I just really feel that going into next season his main struggle is getting his head and his confidence back to where it needs to be for him to take the next step.
The question is not whether Carter is a #1 or better than Kamara. The question is would you rather have Carter earning $1 million per year or Kamara earning $14 million per year? For what it's worth, Carter had a higher Y/A than Kamara last year.
We will just have to disagree on this one. Kamara is only 26 so I’m not really seeing that drop off. In regards to his being used to much, the Saints with Brees were definitely more of a passing team. I do like Carter, but I’m not convinced that he’s a true #1. He does get injured, but after last year’s fiasco, who doesn’t? The Saints are going to get destroyed with cap space so it won’t take a King’s ransom. I’m tired of JD’s bargain basement FA signings.
Signing an expensive RB in FA is almost always a bad move. For one thing, you can get a guy who produces 80% as much for 20% the cost and RB's also fall off more quickly than most other positions as they age. Kamara's a great player but the cost:benefit just isn't there compared to Carter.
I believe JD has final say, but from what I saw in their documentary they made it is a collaborate effort. They showed all JD's assistants & scouts working together. Yes you can say it is JD decision in the end, but Saleh, Leflour, scouts, & all JD's staff have input. Video (specifically 3-12 minutes into video) explains their process of what goes into evaluating players.
Problem with Zack is after his entire first season we are STILL in this mode: "OMG Did we just blow the #2 overall pick on the biggest bust in NY Jets history???". This is the fear ANY fan base goes thru after using a high draft pick on a QB. Bills fans went thru this after Josh Allen's first scatter-shot season. Titans with Mariota. Bears with Tribisky and now Justn Fields. Fish fans with Tua. Now us with Zack. Unfortunately, like Bills fans with Josh Allen, we didn't get a ton of hope for a future top 5 FQB from Zack's maiden voyage. Coming out of season two we MUST feel we've seen enough to give us all hope. A repeat of season 1 will be disastrous. Not just for Zack, but for Saleh et al. I'm with Colorado Contrails and NC feeling that Zack will make every minute of this offseason count, and he'll be a completely different (better) QB going forward.
