Odds Are Against Wilson Correcting Course For Jets After Such A Lousy Rookie Season
A glutton for punishment, I trekked down to Miami over the weekend in the midst of the coronavirus surge to watch the lousy Jets take on the Dolphins.
The result, a 31-24 Jets loss, was irrelevant to me. Even when New York took a 17-10 halftime lead for the first time all season, you had to be wearing rose-colored glasses to believe it wouldn’t be short-lived given the rotten state of Gang Green’s defense. The only thing as embarrassing as the Jets’ tackling efforts (183 yards rushing allowed to a Miami squad ranked 31st in yards per game on the ground) was that effete Dolphins fight song that was blasted all day at Hard Rock Stadium.
No, my mission on Sunday was to get an up-close look at Jets rookie quarterback Zach Wilson.
Much has been written about the inauspicious start to the BYU product’s NFL career, from his inaccuracies to excessive turnovers to his penchant for taking sacks. The debate usually centers around whether these flaws are correctable or if is he headed straight for Bustville.
Unfortunately, I’m leaning towards the latter. Sorry, but it happens. Most first-round QBs bite the dust. For every Josh Allen who overcomes a poor first few seasons, there’s probably dozens of Josh Rosen’s. It’s more than possible that Jets General Manager Joe Douglas, countless scouts and NFL Draft experts, and pundits like me all got it wrong in believing that Wilson was worthy of the No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
Now, I’m not suggesting that the Jets give up on the 22-year old Wilson this offseason, even if the Cardinals provided a model by picking Kyler Murray first overall in the draft year after selecting Rosen to positive rewards. Could this experience and a better supporting cast help Wilson take a leap next season? Sure, but it isn’t likely.
If you look at the first-round quarterbacks who have struggled this much as a rookie over the last 20 years, the aforementioned Allen is an outlier in terms of future success stories. Wilson has arm talent, but playing QB requires elite processing and decision-making as much as physical tools, unless you’re a speed unicorn like Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson who can outrun many mistakes.
My own theory about why Wilson hasn’t progressed this season is that he is suffering from David Carr Syndrome. The older brother of Raiders QB Derek Carr was chosen first in the 2002 Draft by Houston out of a mid-major school out west (Fresno State), where he lit it up.his senior season after a so-so junior campaign. Carr started all 16 games for an expansion team and became famous for getting sacked a ridiculous 76 times. Unfortunately, Carr never lived up to his billing.
Sound familiar? Wilson’s bio, from a meteoric rise at BYU last season to being drafted by a godawful 2-14 team, is pretty similar. In his NFL debut, Wilson was stapled to the turf six times at Carolina, some of them with the force he never encountered among his 52 sacks over his three-year college career.
To me, that beating set the stage for how this season has played out. There have been times, including Sunday’s first half, where Wilson has gotten into a rhythm. The reads and deliveries are quick and the Jets have been able to move the chains, always a nice first step.
But that’s all it ever is. In the first half, Wilson hit on 9-of-14 passes for 118 yards but, according to ESPN, none of the completions travelled over six air yards. For the game, Wilson threw two passes over ten yards, completing neither, per ProFootballFocus.com.
So, what happens when Wilson’s early reads get taken away and he has to hitch or he fails to audible into better protections against oncoming blitzes? He usually loses his sense of the pas rush—where the pressure is coming from and where his escape routes are. Sometimes, he feels pressured when it isn’t there. In Wilson’s second outing against New England, three of his four interceptions occurred while throwing from a clean pocket, according to PFF.
When Wilson gets skittish, his throwing mechanics suffer, leading to erratic accuracy. Under constant duress in Sunday’s second half, he misfired on 5-of-his-9 throws while going down five times, once on a sack/lost fumble.
This is why Wilson is last this season among all qualifying NFL QBs in Expected Points Added per play at minus-0.179 and completion percentage over expected at minus-9.1, behind even Houston’s rookie Davis Mills, a third-round pick.
If you’re thinking that all this is about the Jets’ terrible coaching and a lack of weapons, no one can dispute that offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur pulled out every trick in the book on Sunday to jump-start the offense before running out of them in the second half, when all the Jets could muster was a whopping 54 yards. And let’s not forget that Wilson didn’t have much success when wide receivers Corey Davis and Elijah Moore were healthy, whereas the offense looked significantly more functional when Mike White, Joe Flacco, and even journeyman Josh Johnson called signals during Wilson’s four-game absence due to a PCL strain.
No, we shouldn’t make the same excuses for Wilson we allowed for prior QB Sam Darnold. We wasted three seasons ignoring all the signs that he wasn’t the guy because we were too enamored with a game here or a play there.
The last straw for me was on a third-and-seven from the Jets 28-yard line with just over two minutes remaining in a one-score game. Wilson had running back Michael Carter open in the flat. It was the right read and the right decision but Wilson rushed the throw, sailing it over Carter’s head. You can’t miss those in that spot, especially if it wasn’t in the face of inordinate pressure.
When Jets Head Coach Robert Saleh opted to punt on fourth down, which is a story for another day, I figured there was no way the Jets defense could get a stop and bolted out of the steaming stadium.
Of course, I was wrong, as Wilson did get another shot that went nowhere. As my positive Wilson-related posts in the WFAN archives show, it wasn’t the first time I got it wrong and it surely won’t be the last.