Let's see, we are facing 9 games against teams in the top 10 in passing yards per game allowed: Bills #1 twice Pats #2 twice chicago #3 clev #5 Den #8 Pitt #9 GB #10 Zach Wilson threw for 180 yds/gm, Mike White with the same help threw for 318 yds/gm in the three games he started. Honestly, any improvement will be good given those numbers. I think performing consistently well against the poor teams on the schedule would be a start. Ron
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. 3 bad passes per game is absolutely a reasonable estimate. I watched every game very closely. Zach was over throwing guys a lot before the injury (which led to picks) and under throwing them a lot afterwards because he overcompensated for not wanting to throw picks by keeping most passes low.
We are talking about balls that were 12 feet over an open receivers head or thrown into the ground at an open receivers feet. I'm not talking about normal errant passes.
Zach's preferred playing style requires him to be the most talented player on the field to have success. Mahomes is the same way, but he actually is the most talented player on the field. Zach was in the preseason going against scrubs (and he also was at BYU), but he wasn't in the regular season.
Bad passes are one thing, terrible passes are another. He had a few bad passes in every game, but he didn't have multiple games with multiple terrible passes - i.e. thrown in the dirt, airmailed. All QBs throw some bad passes in most games, and some throw a terrible pass every once in a while. Zach needs to improve in both areas, but it's not accurate to say that he was throwing terrible passes every game.
Twelve feet over a receiver's head is your standard, it's not anything I claimed. You're arguing with yourself.
Every QB has bad passes, and every QB has terrible passes. For NFL-level QBs, accuracy is nearly 100% a function of footwork and mechanics, not talent. (They all have the talent to be accurate, or they wouldn't be in the NFL.) A new NFL QB will never have consistent footwork and mechanics until he learns to process the offense at a high level. When you are spending 100% of your mental focus figuring out where to throw the ball, footwork and mechanics will suffer, and you will have bad (and sometimes terrible) throws. No rookie is processing the offense at a high level, and they will all show accuracy issues as a result. Go watch Lawrence's games or any of the other rookies from last year, and you'll see the same thing. Some rookies will have more accuracy issues than others. It doesn't really speak to their talent or potential. Some may be learning the game slower than others (or not studying as hard). Some may be asked to do more by their coaches -- eg., Mac Jones was given the most basic plays of any of the rookies last year, and Zach was clearly the rookie QB for whom the coaching staff opened the playbook the most. And sometimes, the supporting cast struggles such that the QB is having to process more in order to make play -- it requires more processing to go through the entire progression than it does if the first read is wide open, and that can impact footwork/mechanics for a new QB. Hopefully, Zach's playbook mastery advances far enough that he is much more accurate in Game 1 than he was for much of last year. And if not, hopefully he gets there as the season goes. Here are my year 2 accuracy predictions for last year's top-drafted rookies: 1. Zach: Meaningful improvement, but we'll still see some head-scratchers. Zach benefits from a much improved roster around him, and a year in the system will allow him to process everything better. The biggest challenge for Zach is that the coaches will still be opening the playbook for him more than the other QBs in the class of '21, and it will take another year for him to really master it to the point that he can clean up the mechanics and footwork completely. 2023 will be his year. 2. TLaw: Tough year. Second coach and second offensive scheme in less than 14 months. He definitely has a better coach and team than last year, but with a new coach and scheme, mastering the offense will be a challenge, which means we'll continue to see footwork/mechanics issues and the resultant accuracy problems. 3. Mac Jones: He had a solid team last year and wasn't asked to do much. If Billicheck keeps the training wheels on, Jones should have no problem keeping his accuracy up even though his surrounding roster isn't as good as last year. With that said, the Pats lost a lot at guard. That can affect Jones in 2 ways: (a) it hurts the running game, which may mean Jones has to do more to keep drives alive. Asking him to do more means raising the training wheels up a bit. (b) If Jones faces more pressure, that's going to affect his accuracy a lot. 4. Trey Lance: Probably in the best position of all the 2021 rookies, but let's see how much he plays vs. Garoppolo. 5. Justin Fields: It's tough to be a Bear. New offense, rough supporting cast. No good way to master the offense in his second year. I predict he'll be at the bottom of the heap in terms of accuracy.
I don't know why I should even answer you any longer because you either a) can't comprehend what you read or b) just make up crap anyway but I saw every game this past season. I have missed a few in the last fifty plus years, but probably less than twenty. What makes you such an authority?
Lead the team to more wins than losses because, you know, that’s what’s actually important. Barring that he needs to lead the offense to some serious output. His situation isn’t perfect and it never will be. Not with this franchise. He needs to show that he can overcome the typical bullshit that comes with being a Jet and be *the* difference maker on the field. Otherwise it’ll be the Darnold debate all over again.
There was so much out of Matt Stafford’s control for over a decade in Detroit, yet his stats were always stellar. In the last 3 decades there hasn’t been a great QB that didn’t have great stats, period. If Zach has a good year, his stats will reflect it. If he doesn’t, his stats will reflect it. His stats as a rookie reflected exactly how well (or not so well) he played. As for his second season, if he stays healthy I think he’ll throw for about 20 TD’s, 20 INT’s, 3300 yds and a comp pct of about 60%. And that would be a resounding improvement for him.
While we don’t know by what standards Rotowire uses, we know Zach is at 19.8% while Mahomes is only slightly better at 17.8%. The link you posted has Zach at about average (which is great for a rookie QB) in all categories except dropped balls and pressure rate where he ranked amongst the worst. PFF has adjusted completion percentage accounting for drops, blocked passes etc. Zach was at 69.9 for the season with his best game being against the Jags with 84.2% and his worst was against the Saints with 57.9%.
Ron The bolded is factually incorrect (Although he did average 300+ the 2 games he started and finished 405 + 251) KR
