I think a major part of the fascination of Zach Wilson was because of the success of Patrick Mahomes who seemed to have raised the ability to make off-platform throws to an art form. Now we see Wilson making the same kind of throws in college and be convinced he can do the same in the pros.
I'm not sure it's the Jet's fault in every case. Sanchez started out pretty well and had a great team around him. I think his ceiling just wasn't so high. It never was and he even admits it. Also, some QBs just take a while for their skills to develop (Geno and maybe Darnold). Darnold was never bad, but maybe he has progressed from slightly below average to slightly above average. We'll see. With Zach, the Jets tried 2 distinct approaches with 2 different offensive staffs and neither worked. He has tremendous throwing skills, but his processing skills are lacking. It remains to be seen if those skills will develop. Like others said, Pennington did well. He also sat for over a full season. Maybe that's the way to go for most young QBs.
You can make that case, but there have been plenty of pro QBs, some very good (McMahon, Marc Wilson) and some great (Young) to come out of that school.
True those guys own their development for sure, and agree that Sanchez was just never going to be that great anyway. However, we drafted these QBs while having defensive HCs, right? Rex for Sanchez, Saleh for Zach, can’t remember off hand who our HC was when we drafted Geno, but seems to me that if you’re going to draft a QB high, especially in the first round like Sanchez, Sam, and Zach, you should have a proven offensive staff who knows how to set up a new QB for success…preferably in the HC because he runs the show, but at least the OC should be a proven guy who’s done it before. That’s the main reason I had preferred Daboll to Saleh when we made that hire…we’ll see who turns out to be the better HC as so far while Daboll does have a playoff appearance, neither guy has a winning record. But we have not shown the ability to develop…we don’t hire the right coaches, we don’t provide enough offensive resources for the new QB, etc. This is a very real organizational issue that shows that just fundamentally they don’t understand how to do it. They have acted like all you need is to draft a young stud guy who will just be able to step right in and dominate solely due to his talent. It doesn’t work that way. Even Mahomes … they sat him for the first year and they had Andy Reid to coach him…a proven offensive coach. We haven’t done that. We could have hired Doug Petersen, and while he’s not doing very well right now and TL looks pretty bad, at least he’s had success, he’s an offensive guy, and probably better suited to develop a young QB than Saleh has been.
Nobody had heard of Joe Burrow or Jayden Daniels when their last college seasons started. The problem with Zach wasn't that he came out of nowhere, it was that his competition was bad, which was hiding the fact that he couldn't throw with anticipation.
But the ex-Jets FO draft guy whose name escapes me wrote on his blog and X that Wilson was at best a 3rd round pick. He dissected every throw and said the 73% completion rate was TOTALLY misleading because Zach had 5-7 seconds to throw and his WR's were separated by 5-10 yards which won't happen in the NFL. He said that whoever drafted Zach Wilson the only question was if BOTH the GM and coach would get fired, instead of only one of them. I truly wonder if JD and Saleh believed that, despite their doubts, that Zach was the real deal because why would Kyle Shanahan so badly want to draft him ? If you are looking at all the evidence....and you are negative on Zach...but you know a guy who is regarded as an Offensive Genius says he wants him badly to trade a fortune of draft picks for him.....it's logical to think you'd think YOU were wrong and must be missing something. But just like Shanahan taking Trey Lance, you were wrong in thinking he SHOULD be taken.
I knew both their previous years. Burrow was unique because he left Ohio State beaten out by Dwayne Haskins (go figure). Daniels was either going to be Burrow from LSU or Jamarcus Russel from LSU. Appears more the former.
Eh, that’s kind of nonsense though on Burrow at least. He was on zero people’s draft radars as HOTJ is alluding to before his final year. Daniels was a bit more on the radar because of his superb running ability. He was better the year prior to his Heisman than Burrow was.
Things Daniel Kelly said mostly, "How would you like your coffee". I truly think he was slow and the FO figured they could use someone to be an errand boy/coffee runner so the have him a minimum wage job.
https://forums.theganggreen.com/threads/darnold-fields-wilson-jones-trask-lance.94961/. The link to the poll to see what many thought, I guess a decent amount of us wanted to keep him. Poll was closed in 2021 so no changing your choice now.
I think I was joking when I voted Watson and 3 1sts, but I'm not interested enough to see my explanation to find it in a 125 page thread.
Had to look up what I voted for. Turns out I voted for other and clarified that it was because I wanted to trade down and bring in a new less-costly QB to compete with Sam. Phew.
When I go back through threads like this the usual suspects stand out, going on about how much tape they watched, and then come up with Lance having the highest ceiling along with Lawrence and Lawrence and Wilson being the most pro ready. They always hedge with Lawrence though to make their take seem legit. "I think Lawrence and Wilson are the most pro-ready, but Fields isn't far behind." "IMO there's no doubt that Lawrence and Lance have the highest ceilings."
Everyone was wrong. Let's not hide the fact that it took Sam an additional 4 years to get where he is at now - and with competent coaching - something the Jets would not have had along the way. In his 2 years in Carolina, Sam had a sub 60% completion rate with 16 TDs/16 INTS. The Shannohan internship and now working with O'Connell has made all the difference. Sam would never have flourished here.
