Jets' Zach Wilson Has No Plans to Change Play Style After Knee Injury
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Zach Wilson could've jogged out of bounds, taking a small gain on an impressive first-down scramble.
After all, it was a preseason game.
Instead, the second-year quarterback tried to cut up the field and make a play with his legs, falling to the ground beyond the line of scrimmage as his right knee buckled beneath him.
It's easy to look back at Wilson's non-contact knee injury this many weeks later and criticize the signal-caller's decision. It resulted in knee surgery and Wilson missing the first three-plus weeks of the 2022 regular season.
Even as Wilson and his head coach digest the latest update on Wilson's surgically-repaired knee, however, both aren't concerned about the long-term implications of the quarterback's injury and how he plays the game outside the pocket.
"Getting out of the pocket, running, that’s his superpower," Jets head coach Robert Saleh told reporters on Wednesday after revealing Joe Flacco will start in Week 1 against the Ravens. "Being able to go off schedule and do all of those different things. You don’t want to take that away from him, he’s just got to be smart."
That said, Saleh admitted he had flashbacks to Jimmy Garoppolo's ACL injury in 2018 when he tried to gain a few extra yards and suffered with a serious injury.
"Get what you get, slide, don’t take the hit, go out of bounds, don’t worry about the extra yardage. That part, no matter how much you coach, it is learned through experience," Saleh added. "They come from college where they are used to running people over and they’re used to diving for touchdowns and that was all part of the cool stuff that people showed on his highlight tape coming out of college, but they’ve got to learn it, they’ve got to adjust their game."
Wilson added that while he needs to do a better job taking care of himself, it wasn't like he got hit after making a silly decision. It was a non-contact injury and sometimes "unfortunate stuff like that just happens."
"You never plan to go out there and get injured," Wilson said. "The goal, of course, is to just try and put myself in good situations, taking it one play at a time, and try to get myself out of bad situations."
Wilson ran for 185 yards last season as a rookie. His long was a 52-yard scamper in Week 16 against the Jaguars, a play where he stayed in bounds and cut back, continuing to run downfield.
"Injuries are bad luck," Saleh said. "Some things happen where you just get bad luck, and he just needs a string of good luck, and it will come. Eventually, it always balances itself out."
Staying on the field is the most important aspect of Wilson's sophomore season, a chance for him to evolve as a quarterback with an improved offense around him. As much as he's missing the first chunk of the year, Wilson is confident that once he returns from his knee injury, he'll be able to put that complication in the past and play out the rest of the year.
"I really don’t think it will be [something to manage throughout the year]," he said. "That’s what I’m feeling really confident about, where I am, even right now. You know however much longer it takes to get back on the field because I feel like I’m in a really good spot already. I don’t feel like it’s going to be something that bothers me."
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