Zach Wilson Saw Ghosts
Jeffrey Phelps. Shutterstock Images.Zach Wilson's stat line was pretty rough. Perversely, Sam Darnold's was pretty nice but that's because he wasn't playing the Patriots.
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Rookie Quarterbacks have never faired well against Bill Belichick: Daniel Jones had 3 picks, Justin Herbert had 2, Cam Newton had 2 picks, Josh Allen even had 2 picks. (Mark Sanchez had 4 but he ended up beating Belichick in the playoffs so…)
It was very bad, but in some ways, it was promising? The fact that the Jets held the Patriots to 25-6 with 4 turnovers is actually impressive. Honestly, The team looks so good outside of Zach.
The thing is all these picks were so bad. The first two are tough because they set the tone for the whole game, but they were semi-understandable. The first pick was off a deflection from rushing the throw while getting pressure to his face, the second one was another tipped deflection while getting heat on the rollout.
The last two I need to check the all-22 tape on but it looked like he couldn't get any juice on them because he was throwing off his back foot. That's usually something that gets dealt with in HS. I honestly feel that Wilson might have been hurt and not able to get the same power on the ball that he usually does. Maybe after the first 2 picks, he was in fuck it lets try to make something happen mode.
Many people wonder if he was just really banged up after last week. I think the offensive line giving him enough time was a huge improvement. Zach Wilson was seeing tons of ghosts, but ultimately there were so many great play by the Jets. If Wilson puts together 2 better drives I see the game going way differently.
It is only game 2, there is so much more season to go and he has so much to improve. It can only go up from here. I still see this team being able to make the playoffs, the rest of the team is so good outside of the quarterback. Just gotta reign in Wilson. Mac Jones had almost the same stats, the way the Qbs were handled was different, Mac was very constrained with how many mistakes he could make because of the playcalling.
The Jets simply asked a lot of Zach and left him a lot of room for error. If he can progress and maybe get a couple of good games under his belt for his confidence, he could one day be a really good NFL QB and take this team to the playoffs. Saleh isn't going to let the team turn into a shitshow.