sometimes it’s better and safer to run it in sure… but the point is, with normal competent QB play, TD passes should happen. The fact they they HAVEN’T been happening with Zach is definitely alarming and it’s a problem. It’s a sign that the coaches don’t trust him to throw when we get close to the end zone and he’s not making big throws to get scores when we’re outside the 10 or 15 yard line. This is a bad sign. It’s a sign of a team playing around their QB or hiding their QB….
This is why I'm slowly starting to side with the "Start Mike White ASAP" camp. Mike might be worse than Zach, but he's already put together a better game than anything Zach has ever done at the NFL level with his performance against the Bengals last year. After going back and watching the YT video someone posted of the Bengals game, that game is all Zach needed to do this year. Hit the check down. With the talent we have at our skill position groups this year, just hit the check downs/lay-ups, let those guys make plays, and we probably have a slightly below average offense. Zach can't even do that right now. Connor Rogers had a great quote in their Badlands episode this week. "You're not fixing this in a week, you need a summer". Zach's issues are almost 100% mental IMO but the main issue with that is it's starting to affect other aspects of his game, most importantly his footwork. Go look at any of the clips from Sunday's game and you'll see teach tape on improper footwork at the QB position. This was a big thing Kurt Warner talked about during his film study of Zach. Even when he makes decent throws, his footwork is atrocious. This speaks to his arm strength but as we've seen, physical attributes can only take you so far in this league. His mental state has also caused him to become way too skittish in the pocket. He flees open pockets at the first sign of pressure which effectively cuts the field in half and removes half of your options, if not more, from any given play. It doesn't matter how good your skill guys are playing when half of them aren't even in contention to make something happen on any given play. Just to be clear, I'm not totally out on Zach. He's still just 23 years old, 1.5 years removed from college. Despite his hilariously obnoxious response during his post-game presser, I genuinely don't think he's a bad kid. I think he's a competitor who got caught up in the moment and said a dumb thing. We've all been there so I'm not going to drag him over the coals for that. However, I am out on Zach for this season. Whatever mental issues he's dealing with when it comes to being an NFL QB are probably not going to be solved this year. It's going to take a full offseason of rebuilding his confidence and his footwork and even that might not end up being enough. I fully expect JD, Saleh, and MLF to come together after this season and make the best decision they can in terms of this team/organization. As much as it may pain them to move on from Zach, I think that realization is starting to sink in for them. Saleh already said it yesterday, "We're keeping everything on the table" when it comes to the QB. That's probably going to remain the theme going into and during the upcoming offseason.
I loved Chris Simm's analysis of Wilson 2021 pre-draft and after drafting him because he gave us all hope that we may have gotten the guy. I just listened to his analysis on the PFT podcast and he is saying it's not as bad as it's being made out to be...goddam you Simms! Goddamn you for making us (some of us anyway) believe!
Good post--I personally disagree with your assessment of ZW's problems being close to 100% mental. There are numerous examples of great athletes with incredible physical tools who don't make it into the NFL and sometimes aren't even drafted due to circumstances that indicate large doubt on their overall ability. These are not mental problems IMO. I see nothing to indicate he has the overall tool-package to be successful in the NFL. I like his scrambling and his arm-angle throwing ability but outside of these, I don't see aspects of his play that make him anything but a long-shot to stay in the league. Now I'll even go further and say we are wasting precious coaching resources on this dude. I'm sure we have the best QB mentoring and analyses money can buy and they would be better spent on Mike White/Chris Streveler at this point.
Where has Zach been? Where is his statement? Why hasn’t he already stepped up and taken accountability?
Zach definitely has mental recognition issues, but the primary reason he has sucked so bad are his faulty mechanics. He throws off the back foot too much and doesnt step into his throws. That is why he is so often high on what should be easy completions. Right now he is a broken player. In the off-season job one is to fix the mechanics because if the mechanics are screwed up even with perfect recognition, he will still not complete passes.
I certainly understand why you have that perspective. We've seen Zach make elite NFL QB throws though. The issue with those is that they're so few and far between that it almost makes them irrelevant. I'd settle for fewer wow plays if he could just hit the short stuff at a high clip. He's not going to be able to do that though until he totally revamps his footwork IMO.
He's likely going through a very tough process at this point. It's hard to admit that you can't meet the grade at your chosen career path. Josh Allen took that doubt and decided to remake himself in a number of different ways and he's reaping the benefits right now, albeit in a lot of pain from the UCL thing. It's doubtful that ZW has the same path moving forward that Josh Allen did. He's not huge nor does he have the arm that Allen has. Also he's significantly damaged physically with a left shoulder separation that he's been living with for some years now. It's probably healed some but since he didn't get it repaired surgically there is likely a fair amount of scar tissue in there causing issues. When I saw the quick blindside sack that took ZW down on Sunday onto that left shoulder I winced because that must have hurt like hell. Basically ZW is in the position where everything is causing doubts *and* he needs to correct fundamental issues like footwork, reading the field and releasing the ball faster. It's got to seem like close to a insurmountable task to him and it probably is at this point in his career. The best thing he could do right now is to take some time off and really work on the mechanical issues. He probably should finally get the left shoulder repaired also. That injury is not going to get better as he gets older and it will become harder to fix as hits on it accumulate over time.
This is exactly what Kurt Warner was talking about in his breakdown. Zach's lead foot is almost never pointed towards his target. This leads to inaccuracy issues and is one of the primary reasons he's missing these short throws that should be gimmes.
holding an inpromptu press conference to make NJJets fan feel good would make it worse. He's not obligated to speak to the media yet so he shouldn't. Say less and take care of accountability questions in house. That's how a man approaches the situation
Sure--but here's what concerns me about your and KY's emphasis on "mental aspects" such as recognition. These aspects are not measurable in the same way as footspeed and arm strength. Rather you assume a mental issue when we see someone apparently not recognize an open receiver and assume their is a "mental" blockage of some sort that once removed will cause good recognition to occur. This kind of thinking will cause one to continue to pour resources into the problem in some hope the mental issue can be resolved. I would rather say there is a brain-processing issue that is about as native to the person as footspeed and arm-strength. A person who has had a broken leg for years once fixed can learn to run--maybe they even are fast--but there will be observable measurements of this such as muscle build up etc indicating a strong prognosis--maybe they run much faster than expected given their previous injury. So you put resources into it. So maybe you can articulate--what evidence do you have that makes you believe ZW has the brain-processing ability necessary for an NFL QB so that we should continue to dump resources into him. Isn't it even more likely given all the evidence thus far that he simply does not have the tools to be successful? How long would you allow for this mental block to be removed? 1 year--2 years?
Perhaps you are misreading my post. I am saying that first and foremost Zach has mechanical issues. That is why he cant complete the easy ones. Secondly, I also think he has mental processing issues. Every game you can go back and analyze he has multiple wide open guys that he doesnt even throw to and instead he goes elsewhere into coverage. His mental processing in terms of knowing where to look and whether or not to pull the trigger is clearly lacking. In the NE game there was a wide open receiver on a post play that would have been an easy TD if Zach saw the guy.
Going through a tough process? Maybe, but you wouldn't know it watching his press session Sunday. I'm not just talking about the "No, no" comment to letting the defense down. The entire time he basically stood there emotionless and calmly talked about everybody fixing things, without a hint of disappointment, anger, or accountability for his atrocious performance in a huge division game. He looked like he was hardly bothered by the loss or his futility! The sooner that Douglas/Saleh admit he was a bad pick the better. Douglas has done one hell of a job in other areas--Don't keep letting the jets lose by refusing to see that Wilson stinks (which everybody else can clearly see) .
Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. There was an article years ago about one of the bad-mechanics guys like Tebow or Hackenberg. One of the big-time throwing gurus (Tom House?) said that it takes something like 10,000 repetitions for new mechanics to become muscle memory. Each of those 10,000 repetitions must be done correctly for the process to work. The new mechanics have to become muscle memory because once the ball's snapped, the QB has a lot of things other than his mechanics to think about. Guys go to throwing gurus every off-season, but I wonder how many have succeeded in changing their mechanics to the degree Wilson has to.
I will say this: the fans who want Zach gone or have given up on him: Zach failing sets the team back. Him succeeding could lead to many years of team success. QB's don't just grow on trees. If they sign his replacement, he will be an average QB at best. (Which right now fans are saying would have beat the Patriots twice and I agree). The goal is to win Super Bowls though. Zach progressing and turning into a franchise QB is what is best for this team. Maybe he never will, but to give up now would be ridiculous. To give up before 2023 would be ridiculous too. Fans need to show patience and on the other side, Zach needs to reward your patience with hard work and improvement on and off the football field.
In an ideal world, this works. Unfortunately this is a win now league and there is talent on both sides of the ball to win and compete. For the most part the team is on an upward trajectory, aside from one position - and its the most important one. Inconsistency at that position is killer, and ZW is every bit of inconsistent you can possibly be. In an ideal world though, I agree - the best outcome is he figures it out and becomes the franchise QB this organization has lacked since basically Joe Namath
TDK - New York has chewed him up and spit him out. Wilson is not the 1st nor the last to go through this. I appreciate your takes, they are a 100 times better than the others here who flood the board with emotional pro-Wilson takes but now is not the time to show patience. This team has a championship caliber defense and a real playmaker at WR in Garrett Wilson. We've seen teams make a run at the super bowl with similar rosters. (Carolina with Steve Smith, Cincinnati last year) they just need a decisive QB to get the ball out quickly. Wilson cant do that.
well it’s interesting…I kind of feel like the faulty mechanics are a result of his real issue which is not seeing the field well and getting jittery in the pocket because he’s not trusting what he does see…I’ve seen plenty of hitches or double clutches when he could have just winged the ball out…he did that well in the Buffalo game with all those quick hit passes. So the faulty mechanics are a result of him seeing stuff late and having to throw off platform because the window to complete the pass is closing I’m no QB coach but I just think it’s mental…he’s not seeing things at all…there are WAY too many open receivers running around not getting the ball…or getting a bad ball because he’s late to see it. there have been plenty of physically talented QBs who sucked because they couldn’t see the game…I think Zachnis in that category now and I’m not sure that can be fixed at all, but I I’m pretty sure it’d be hard to fix in-season if it hasn’t happened yet…
