It was his first game, so I'm not going to go nuts either way. He brought some really good and some really bad. We need to see more fourth quarter Zach and less first-through-third quarter Zach. Fourth quarter comebacks are nice, but you're not always going to be in that position This game against the Dolphins is probably the biggest game of his career. If he plays like he did in the first three quarters, I doubt the Jets will be in any position for a late comeback. If he plays like he did in the fourth quarter, this is a playoff team.
Zach played well the first quarter, and most of the second (Until the last drive pic) putting together two scoring drives and should have been three if not for the dumb pick. He struggled through the 3rd quarter and played lights out in the fourth leading two TD drives including a game-winning drive. To say he played poorly for the first three quarters is inaccurate. He played poorly for one quarter.
I would not say Zach played poorly in the third quarter. Just the opposite, he was almost perfect in the third quarter, His stats were 2 of 8. But those incompletions were from 2 balls he threw away and 4 drops. 2 drops by Wilson, one by Hall and one by Conklin. One can criticize the throw to Conklin being high but he put the ball right into Conklin's hands. Hard to ask for better than that as a reciever.
Yea the under thrown pass the Hall was tough. Probably due to rust. But if you watch again, he has Conklin WIDE OPEN underneath for like a 10+ yard gain. I know Hall was open also but the pass to Conklin was a layup.
I tried to find the stats by quarter and could not. It is way easy to look at the box score and say he sucked for three quarters. I was confident in that game even when we got down. Last year's Zach I would not have been. When we converted that 4th down I knew we would win the game. One the reason I am high on Zach is his ability to make clutch throws on 4th down. If anyone was paying attention he did that a few times last season as well including against Buffalo.
it was 1st and 10 and Hall was wide open. It was the right choice, he throws a good ball that is a TD. On the next play he hits Conklin for the first. It was not like it was 4th down and he threw a fade to EM.
Cheers, that makes sense, I only really noticed when I was typing my reply, was just covering my bases tbh lol
Those 4th quarter throws were not wide open throws. This was not the like the browns giving away the game. The Steelers defense played well. Zach was threading a needle. The throw to Wilson on 3rd and long, the throw to Conklin on 3rd down, the back shoulder to Davis, the throw to Davis on 4th down were all high level difficult throws. But maybe my favorite throw was the check down to Michael Carter on 1st and 20 after the C. Davis penalty. His first two reads were not there and the pocket was collapsing and boom he shifted focus right to Carter and the ball was out. It was such a huge play gaining around 12 or 13 yards and making things more manageable. The the really big play was the scramble on 4rd and long setting up a manageable 4th and 7. He got drilled on that play. One last thing I really liked was immediately after Davis made the back shoulder catch Wilson ran hurry up before it could be challenged for a catch. I don't know if he will work out long term but he is smart, confident and played great in the clutch yesterday. I don't know if things are ever going to click for him. But, when he just plays without overthinking he is really good. Sabo is right when he said it is all mental for Zach. When he relaxes and just plays he is so much better.
This league has very little patience to let QBs develop and then amplify that being in NY. First-year Qbs you are looking for signs that he is growing and learning (we got that). 2nd year you are looking for moments and we already got that game 1 and now we are looking for consistency. It is going to be a fun ride I am not sure why people do not want to enjoy it. The question I have is Zach going to be a Jamis Winston or a Patrick Mahomes.
After going back and watching the game again, I thought he played ok in the 1st quarter (3-5 32 yds), bad in the 2nd and 3rd (2nd: 3-11, 59 yds, 1 TD Rec, 1 INT; 3rd: 2-8, 33 yds, 1 INT), and obviously great in the 4th. Felt like the gameplan was a little conservative in the 1st quarter which is why I thought he was kinda ok there. Only threw 5 passes, felt like a good way to ease him back into live-action tbh. One of his incompletions here was the play where he avoided the would-be sack from Highsmith (who beat Mitchell like he stole something) and turned an 8 yard loss into an incompletion, heady play from Zach. His other incompletion was a batted ball at the LOS while he was targeting Elijah on a corner route. One of his best throws of the game IMO was the comeback to Elijah with ~ 1 min to go in the 1st quarter. Threw the ball with anticipation which resulted in a 20 yard gain. All these things combined, I felt like Zach was ok in the 1st despite a fairly pedestrian statistical performance. In the 2nd and 3rd quarter, Zach combined to be 5-19 w/ 91 yards, 1 TD rec, 2 INTs. That's just not good guys. I get that the OL and the WRs didn't do him any favors during this stretch and context matters but it is what it is. He was good on the first TD drive (started w/ 2 mins to go in the 1st, ended with Zach's TD rec w/ 12:37 in the 2nd), made 2 great throws, the one I pointed out above to Elijah and then another one across the middle to Elijah that got us down to the 15 yard line so it wasn't all bad, just mostly. There's nothing wrong with pointing out that Zach HAS to be more accurate and make better decisions than what he demonstrated in the middle of the game against the Steelers to be successful. I've got all the faith in the world in Zach and I really do believe he'll learn and continue to improve as he gets more reps. That's why I'm not being hyper critical of Zach this week. First week back and you could definitely see some rust early on but he rebounded and put the team on his back when it mattered most. I genuinely hope that last quarter gave him some much needed confidence and showed him that he can play at a high level in this league. He's going to have another opportunity against a solid Dolphins defense this week, so hopefully he proves me right and plays more like the 1st and 4th quarters for the entire game. Link to every passing situation Zach had against Pittsburgh:
Woof, after watching Zach's first pick multiple times it was BY FAR his worst play of the entire day. 3rd & 11, 33 seconds to go in the half, ball on the 29 yard line, 10-3 Jets. Had GW on a crosser, moving left to right, wide open. Steelers were in Cover 2 Man and GW's man got rubbed by the LB (who was covering Breece) but Minkah was the over the top S, so maybe GW gets a 1st, maybe he doesn't, but no way should Jeff Smith have been his best read. It's not a God-awful read because Jeff has a step on his man so if Zach throws a dart it's a great play but that's a terrible decision given the game situation. If Zach throws it to GW on the play, best case, he breaks a tackle and maybe scores a TD. Worst case, Zach hits GW and Minkah comes up to force an incompletion. Still, the variance for making a play to GW there is much better considering where the game was at that point. Go to 5:23 in the video I posted above to see the play. Best view, however, starts at the 5:41 mark in the video. That is definitely one Zach will want back.
it was def the tougher throw but i think it was a good choice ... zach had time to set his feet and really let it fly but he did a weird jump pass instead
Context matters far more than bare stats. That's the reality. Anyone who simply looks at and quotes the stats without the context is wrong. But that's what most of the media does so that's what many fans do, believing they're using "facts", but facts without context are just numbers. Zach was much better than the numbers indicate. And for anyone who is still alive who saw Namath play you would perhaps understand this better. Namath's stats, on paper, indicate that he was an average QB. But he's not considered one of the all time greats for nothing. And no, I'm not saying Zach is as good as, or will ever be as good as, Namath. Maybe he will. Personally I do see a bit of the supreme self confidence and ability to transmit to his teammates that Joe had, so maybe. But he's going to need to consistently deliver on the field by being able to step up in big situations consistently. Time will tell. Sunday's game was certainly one of those occasions.
I do not think he went to Jeff Smith after that. You are correct you do not throw a ball that has any chance of getting picked in that situation. It was a rookie mistake that cannot happen. The big difference was he played lights out in the 4 quarter which more than made up for the mistakes. .
"Far more" might be a bit of a stretch for me but I generally agree with what you're saying. However, stats absolutely matter. Yards matter, touchdowns matter, interceptions matter. Advanced analytics matter and they had Zach -13.2% for completion % above expectation. Meaning Zach's expected comp % "should have" been 63.2%. This indicates that Zach missed some throws he "should have" made, which is backed up by the tape IMO. Granted, all those stats and analytics can be somewhat subjective based on a multitude of factors but generally speaking they're reliable. Zach was incredible in the 4th quarter and as I've stated before that absolutely means something, so from that perspective, he was better than the overall number indicate, but when you see some of his decisions/throws in the 2nd & 3rd quarter, the numbers make more sense.
Lots of good analysis here…lots of context discussions, stats discussions, etc. to me, we saw both the good to great potential from Zach alongside the same type of bad stuff like off target throws especially on short stuff, and some poor decisions good and bad it was a great 4th quarter performance to pull out a win so that’s something to build on
I am having trouble printing the image. But you are dead wrong. I paused the video and took a pic. The ball was thrown absolutely perfectly and went through his hands. The ball hit him perfectly in stride.Not behind him, not ahead of him, not high or low. It was not a big play and was going a 2 yard gain. Wasit a good decision. Maybe, no. But by any definition of a drop it was a drop. The Conklin INT drop could be argued that the ball was high even though it went right through his hands but there is no argument here. Just to be clear we are talking about 5 minutes and 18 seconds to go in the Third Quarter. If the image does not work I would be happy to email you or someone else the screenshot.
I don't agree that the ball to Breece was a "perfectly" thrown ball. It's a tad behind and a tad high. I do, however, agree that it should have been a catch by Breece, so I'm obviously splitting hairs on this one. For anyone wanting to weigh in, play starts at the 7:08 mark of the YT video.
