Expect Zach Wilson to Be Great Half the Time
There is so much hype surrounding Zach Wilson, it almost makes people forget about how inconsistent he is on game film.
Almost.
That’s what I am here for, to remind everyone of the truth about the second-year quarterback of the Jets.
Beyond the pages of positive stories on Google where the focus is only on one side of the coin, I am here to remind everybody of Wilson’s stats and what the game film says.
I am here to remind everybody of the facts.
Wilson is a heartbreaker.
He looks great half the time and absolutely terrible the other half of the time.
That is who he is.
That should be the expectation going forward based on the football resume Wilson has created.
No better place was this illustrated than Wilson’s completion percentage last season.
He completed 55.6% of his passes.
Okay, that’s a little bit better than half of the time, but it still wasn’t too good, and it certainly wasn’t good enough.
That ranked No. 31 in the NFL in 2021. While the Jets did not pick second in the draft, they picked fourth.
As the QB goes, so goes the team…
This is nothing new either. Wilson was also inconsistent in college.
There was nothing consistent in his numbers in his three seasons at BYU. He was up and down in his completion percentage and interception totals.
What sense does it make to expect Wilson to be something he has never been in college or the NFL?
“I watched every one of his throws and runs in 2020 (BYU) and I am not seeing it or feeling it with this guy in terms of arm strength, touch, ball placement, or accuracy. Half of his throws look great and half of them look receiver “unfriendly,” or downright bad. Many passes were high or low and were either incomplete or he gave the receivers literally no chance to pick up additional yards. It literally and consistently was like watching two different quarterbacks throw. He will be an interception machine in the NFL.”
Those were my words pre-draft about Wilson for Draft Diamonds, and that is exactly the way he looked last season for New York.
Wilson threw 11 interceptions in 13 games in 2021.
He has continued to show inconsistency in training camp as well.
On August 2, a headline in the New York Post read, “Zach Wilson’s inconsistent training camp continues with rough Jets practice.”
The rubber hits the road September 11 in the opener against the Baltimore Ravens.
I don’t put much stock in hype practice stats in a controlled environment, and I learned in the pre-season last year to take his stats during those games with a grain of salt.
Last pre-season, when the offense was simplified and the focus was on attempting to build his confidence with a bunch of short passes, Wilson went 15/20 for 190 yards, no sacks and no interceptions.
Then the regular season happened.
While I was the only voice in America saying Wilson had an extremely high chance of being bust pre-draft, I am not his biggest critic.
I just keep the narrative real.
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