Film Study on New Dolphins QB Zach Wilson

Breaking down the strengths and weaknesses of the impending free agent acquisition

Denver Broncos quarterback Zach Wilson (4) before the game against the Kansas City Chiefs at Empower Field at Mile High. / Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

The Miami Dolphins have a new quarterback.

The Dolphins made their first new free agent acquisition Monday, reportedly agreeing to a one-year, $6 million deal with former Jets and Broncos passer Zach Wilson. The former second overall pick’s deal can reach $10 million with incentives.

Backup quarterback is an especially important position for the Dolphins. Starter Tua Tagovailoa has only had one fully healthy NFL season, and poor backup quarterback play has sunk the team’s season as recently as last year.

The Dolphins are taking a massive risk on Wilson, who is arguably one of the biggest draft busts in recent memory. In three seasons with the Jets, Wilson started 33 games but finished with a record of 12-21.

Quarterback wins are a horrible stat, but finding any good Zach Wilson stats is tough. During his Jets tenure, he completed 57 percent of his passes for 23 touchdowns and 25 interceptions. He was also the league’s fifth-most sacked quarterback during that stretch.

Wilson spent last season with the Denver Broncos but did not play a single regular season snap. The only new data to go off of is 44 pass attempts from the 2024 preseason. He completed 66.7 percent of those passes for 395 yards, three touchdowns, and zero interceptions.

That said, the preseason is our worst possible evaluation tool. Teams rarely run their real offense, and backups playing together against other backups is very far removed from regular-season action.

With that in mind, we’ve decided to look back at Wilson’s Jets tape to see what the Dolphins are getting with their new signal-caller.

Zach Wilson’s Strengths

Arm Talent

This is the reason Wilson was taken with the second overall pick. Wilson’s natural arm talent is well above average for the NFL. He’s got plenty of arm strength to access all three levels of the field, and he’s capable of driving passes into tight windows.

This throw against the Cardinals from the 2024 preseason is an excellent example.

Wilson does an excellent job climbing the pocket and throwing a strike between two zone defenders. The middle linebacker actually does a pretty good job of reading Wilson’s eyes and dropping into the zone, but Wilson just beats him with velocity.

The other appealing part about Wilson’s arm talent is his ability to make throws on the run. Wilson has great arm elasticity, which just means he can bend his arm at different angels and still generate velocity.

This allows Wilson to throw side-armed and across his body with impressive velocity. This throw against the Texans shows that in action.

Wilson spins out to his left after facing immediate pressure and rips a bullet to his receiver 30 yards down the field. The placement on this throw is pretty impressive, as he led his receiver away from the safety coming downhill.

For all his faults, Wilson has every throw in his bag. He can hit pretty much any area of the field from pretty much any spot.

Mobility

Wilson isn’t an elite runner by any means, but he’s athletic enough to threaten defenses with his legs. Typically, Wilson likes to use his mobility behind the line of scrimmage.

This is a double-edged sword for Wilson, as he tends to try and do too much behind the line. The clip above against Houston is a good example of how his mobility can help him avoid sacks, but his reliance on it is one of the reasons he was sacked so much in New York.

In fact, Wilson would likely benefit from taking off and running beyond the line more often. Wilson’s career high for rushing yards (211) came in 2023, and he had a couple of good flashes, like this one against Dallas.

Wilson shouldn’t get many designed quarterback runs. He’s not Lamar Jackson or Jayden Daniels, but Wilson spent so much time running backward on his Jets tape that getting him to consider taking more easy yards beyond the line of scrimmage could go a long way.

In an ideal world, Wilson never plays enough to push his rushing total this high, but getting it closer to the 400-yard mark would be a significant improvement.

Whether it’s behind the line or scrimmage or beyond it, Wilson is a lot more mobile than Tagovailoa but probably less than Tyler Huntley.

Zach Wilson’s Weaknesses

Accuracy

There were a lot of reasons Wilson’s tenure with the Jets didn’t work out, but the top one is definitely a lack of accuracy. Wilson has funky throwing mechanics, which can lead to misfires on easy concepts.

One of Wilson's biggest criticisms coming out of BYU was that he wasn’t efficient in the short area of the field. When he got to the NFL, things only got worse. This throw is a good example of some of Wilson’s easy misses.

Most of his misses aren’t quite this bad, but similar throws are littered throughout his game tape. Plus, Wilson isn’t just inaccurate on the easy throws. He struggles downfield, too.

Wilson has a career 34.2 percent completion percentage on passes that traveled farther than 20 yards in the air. He’s also thrown nine of his 25 career interceptions on such passes compared to just three touchdowns.

When Wilson hits a deep ball, it’s usually a great throw, but he’s not even close to being consistent.

A lot of Wilson’s accuracy issues can be traced back to poor upper and lower-body mechanics. He doesn’t always sync his feet with his throwing motion, which can lead to him being pretty erratic.

Pocket Management

As we’ve mentioned already, Wilson took a lot of sacks with the Jets. In his three seasons in New York, Wilson took 113 sacks. For reference, Tagovailoa has taken 111 sacks in his entire career (64 games).

Wilson has appeared in roughly half as many games as Tagovailoa and has somehow managed to take more sacks. Not all of those sacks are Wilson’s fault, as the Jets’ offensive line really struggled throughout his tenure.

Still, Wilson wasn’t helping them much. This sack against the Chargers shows how poor quarterback and offensive line play are to blame.

On this play, Wilson spends too much time on the route breaking across the middle of the field. He needs to come off that way quicker and try to drive the ball to the other in-breaker or just flip the ball out to his check down.

However, his right tackle doesn’t do him any favors, as he loses almost immediately off the snap. So many of Wilson’s sacks look like this one. He’s late getting through progressions, and the Jets’ offensive line can’t hold up.

Ball Security

Wilson isn’t careful with the football. He has a lot of trust in his natural abilities, and it tends to get him in trouble more often than not.

Many of Wilson’s interceptions combine the things we’ve already examined. Several of them are the product of him running around behind the line of scrimmage instead of throwing the ball away.

Others are because he’s slow to get through his progressions, allowing defenders to close down windows they otherwise wouldn’t.

However, the biggest culprit by far is Wilson’s lack of accuracy. A good chunk of his interceptions are just simply bad throws, like this one against the Cowboys.

There’s not much analysis to provide here. Wilson just completely misses his target and hits the defender right in the chest. There are so many misses like this one on tape, and he never really cut down on them with experience.

The Final Word on Wilson  

This is an incredibly difficult signing to judge. At face value, it looks horrible.

Wilson’s tape on the Jets is brutal. He’s inaccurate, indecisive, and took almost zero developmental strides across three seasons. The Jets version of Wilson certainly isn’t worth the contract the Dolphins are reportedly giving him.

However, where Wilson lands on the depth chart needs to be considered. If he ends up being the Dolphins’ third quarterback, paired with a more reliable veteran, then taking a shot on his natural tools makes a lot of sense for the Dolphins.

There is no issue with taking a swing on Wilson’s development as a QB3. The other thing to consider is whether Wilson improved with the Broncos.

His preseason tape looks much better than anything he did with the Jets. But again, the preseason is hardly a good evaluation tool. There are reports that Wilson took major strides with the Broncos, but we don’t have any real proof of that.

Broncos coach Sean Payton is well-regarded for his quarterback development skills, and Mike McDaniel has done a nice job maximizing Tagovailoa’s game. So, it’s not impossible to imagine that Wilson could get better with improved coaching.

Still, it’s a giant leap. If Wilson is Miami’s QB2 heading into next season, which is likely given the contract he was given, it’s betting on a player whose film is arguably worse than Skylar Thompson and Huntley’s — two players whose poor performance sunk the Dolphins’ 2024 season.

Wilson is way more talented than Thompson and Huntley, so there’s a version of history where he’s better, but every positive outcome is based purely on projection with zero proof of concept.