If The Jets Acquire A Veteran QB, Zach Wilson Proclaims He Will "Make That Dude's Life Hell In Practice"
The audacity of this young man. My first instinct was to laugh Zach Wilson all the way back to Provo, Utah, because the guy has been BLINDED by the bright lights of New York City. Then again, he is with a perpetually inept Jets franchise who put impossible expectations on him, chucked him into the NFL fire when he wasn't ready and more or less clowned themselves by torpedoing his development.
I really don't harbor any lingering feelings about Wilson coming out of BYU when I thought he was going to be a baller in the NFL. I fancy myself a decent quarterback evaluator from afar, but hell, these teams with all their inside information and years of experience whiff on QBs all the time in the draft at an alarming rate.
Any favorable perception I had of Wilson as a player fell away by, like, his eighth game as a rookie. That was before his disastrous 2022, wherein he actually improved but was still terrible by franchise quarterback standards. I don't die on Hot Take Hills. Many people are very wrong about many sports-related things every year. Just wear it.
And yet with allllllll that said, I still find myself defending Zach Wilson to at least some degree after so many blogs of blasting him since I got into this Barstool blogging space. His raw arm talent and the downfield accuracy he showed at the collegiate level are full-blown freaky. Problem is, he's unschooled on how to read defenses, and his footwork is all over the place to the point where he can't consistently deliver an accurate, short-area throw. Kind of hard to have any NFL career with those fundamental flaws.
Beyond that, at age 23, Wilson still lacks maturity, which is to be expected, but still…yikes…"Decision-making" as a self-proclaimed superpower and not falling on the sword at the podium…?
Yeah, this guy doesn't "get it" as they say.
So to bring it all the way back around to what Wilson uttered today: we might be seeing yet another completely self-unaware misstep from him. Like, is he digging himself a bigger hole? Or do Gang Green fans view this as a positive that, despite completely shot confidence and getting deactivated by head coach Robert Saleh, Wilson is turning over a new leaf and won't shy away from competition.
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We could look back at this as the moment Wilson was triggered into actually diving into his playbook, cleaning up his mechanics, understanding defenses and valmorphanizing into the superstar the Jets thought they were getting when they picked him No. 2 overall. That's the glass half-full version.
However the future plays out, though, what else does Zach Wilson say there? "Oh, if they bring someone in, I'll just accept a backup role." NOPE. Don't do that! I think I like how he responded to the undeniable top subplot of the Jets' offseason. I don't really know. Let's just hope he can spare himself further embarrassment and actually back those words up to some degree. Maybe a beat writer will put out a pity report of "Zach Wilson Is Giving Quarterback X All He Can Handle In Training Camp Competition."
My hunch is the Jets either reunite offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur with Jimmy Garoppolo, or possibly address the matter sooner by trading for longtime Raiders QB Derek Carr. Unless you can convince Tom Brady he could be the Patriots twice a year, get Geno Smith to come home, or pry Lamar Jackson away from Baltimore for a shit ton of money, Jimmy G and Carr are probably the two best veteran options.
Part of me is still rooting for Zach Wilson, if only because he could be one of the most remarkable redemption stories in NFL history should he transform his trajectory from all-time draft bust to starting-caliber quarterback.
Twitter @MattFitz_gerald/TikTok
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