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An Intro to NYDN's New Beat Writer (Another Zach Wilson thread in disguise)

Lith

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Lith

Lith

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Looks like NYDN has upgraded.  Hopefully we have too.

No one eats tape like Zach Wilson
By DJ BIEN-AIME II
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
MAY 03, 2021 AT 7:00 AM

On the night of Zach Wilson’s 21st birthday, he and his girlfriend, Abbey Gile, returned to the apartment he shared with childhood friend Brayden Cosper. BYU’s fall camp would begin the next day, and Wilson was facing down a quarterback competition after injuries led to a subpar 2019 season. The night would be Wilson’s last chance to relax for the foreseeable future.

Cooper was in the living room when the couple returned, and asked what they had been up to for Wilson’s birthday.

The couple had been at BYU’s practice field, with Gile reading every play on the practice script and Wilson visualized his cadences and processed his reads to imaginary receivers weaving through imaginary defenses.

At that moment, Cooper says, he knew Wilson was going to win the quarterback competition and a big year was imminent.

“That tells you how competitive the dude was,” Cosper said. “He wanted to be the best he could be.”

Wilson led BYU to a 11-1 record as he finished with 3,692 passing yards with 33 touchdowns and added 10 scores on the ground. His play style reminds folks of Green Bay Packers’ Aaron Rodgers and his big season catapulted him all the way to the No. 2 overall pick and the new face of the New York Jets.

What type of player is Gang Green getting? By all accounts, a competitive workaholic with the gift of turning hard work into results on the field.

BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick remembers waking up at 3 a.m. to use the bathroom on a team flight. The team was flying back to Utah after a tough 17-22 loss to Coastal Carolina. Most of the team was asleep as Roderick lumbered through the plane, but he noticed a player staring into an iPad.

It was Wilson, watching Rodgers film, trying to think how to emulate the league MVP and improve his game.

Wilson’s coaches and teammates at BYU say they have rarely seen a player as deeply in love with watching film as the young quarterback.

[More Jets] Jets select UNC RB Michael Carter in 4th round of NFL Draft, then turn focus to defense in later rounds »
Backup quarterback Jaren Hall sat by Wilson on the majority of the plane rides and rarely saw Wilson watch anything but film.

“He wasn’t watching movies, he wasn’t doing a lot of other things you could be doing,” Hall said. “The dude has always found a way to watch film.”

Wilson usually walked around the BYU football facilities with his head hunched over staring into his iPad studying opposing defenses.

There were times when practice would finish around 5:30 p.m. Wilson would shower, grab his food, and head to the quarterback room to watch film till 11 p.m. BYU coaches would have to tell him to go home.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. He made me a better coach because every day I was afraid to go into meetings and having him know more than I did about an opponent,” Roderick said. “With Zach Wilson, you can’t just show up at meetings unprepared, ever. I had to always stay one step ahead of him. He’s the only player I’ve ever coached that was that big of a challenge for me to stay ahead of him on game planning on opponent film.”

The week when BYU played Texas State, Wilson approached Roderick at practice about a flaw he peeped about their defense during film study.

“Tampa two was their main coverage in two minute,” Roderick said. “He noticed that when the quarterback moved outside the pocket, the backside safety would not keep his width and he would flow with the quarterback.”

Roderick was hesitant to give Wilson the green light on throwing across the field, but trusted him.

Then in the game, the situation manifested itself as Wilson launched a dart for a 45-yard touchdown to wide receiver Dax Miline against Texas State to put BYU up 35-7.

Wilson came to the sidelines and told Fesi Sitake, BYU’s passing game coordinator, he knew that was a touchdown before the snap.

“He’s like ‘Hey! I knew that was coming, I scrambled out to the right, knowing that safety was gonna lag and then I just launched it,’” Sitake recalled. “We just let him play ball and he would do those things.”

Even after games where Wilson played exceptionally well, he wasn’t satisfied.

Against Western Kentucky, Wilson threw for 224 yards and had four total touchdowns which is an excellent game for most players.

That night Wilson texted former BYU star quarterback John Beck to parse how he could improve before facing Boise State. Beck met Wilson his freshman year and became his offseason quarterback coach. The two texts passed 1 a.m.

“I would get a text message at midnight my time so that’s one o’clock Utah time. ‘Hey, are you watching the game?’ because he knows I’m going to re watch it,” Beck said. “He starts talking about plays a where like, like ‘What do you think of this?’” And so here’s the text exchange at like one o’clock in the morning my time, which is two o’clock in the morning his time, about plays from the game.”

Then they talked about what to expect defensively from No.21 Boise State, who was BYU’s next opponent. And the next day Wilson sent Beck some of their defensive coverages for more advice.

BYU crushed Boise State 51-17 and Wilson had 360 yards passing and four total touchdowns.

That study habit didn’t begin college either.

Charri Jensen, one of Wilson’s High School teachers at Corner Canyon, had him in her sewing class. Jensen recalled how obsessive he was over film study.

“There were a lot of times I’d walk around and he was watching film. I just remember saying to him, ‘Do you ever get sick of this?’” Jensen said with a chuckle. “And I get a lot of boys watching film, but he was one that was always watching film.”

Jensen wasn’t the only teacher to notice.

Eric Kjar, Wilson’s high school football head coach, had an online learning lab class and the same desire existed.

“He would just sit in there and watch film and start talking to me about film all the time, instead of just working on his schoolwork,” Kjar said. “And he always did that too, but anytime he had a free moment, he would come up on Hudl and start looking through film.

That competitiveness and will to improve carries through to areas outside of football as well.

Gunner Romney--BYU’s second leading receiver in 2020 and Wilson’s roommate--labeled their relationship as competitive.

[“There were nights when we would play for three or four hours just going back and forth,” Gunner said. “And the first couple of weeks that we got the ping pong table, we counted that I beat him 74 times in a row. He got so competitive about it and he would literally practice but finally he beat me. And then when I moved out of the house he kept practicing so now I can’t even compete with him.”

The ping pong battles would not only leave them dripping in sweat but ready for blows.

“There were times when we would start throwing towels at each other screaming,” Gunner said with a chuckle. “It almost started fist fights.”

Jets fans can probably relate to the 74 straight losses. But what they should take heart in is the resourcefulness to get off the mat and win the 75th, and keep going from there.

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Morrissey

Morrissey

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12 minutes ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

New writer is right out of college, not from the area, and has no real contacts or sources with the Jets. 

 

That's who the DN hired to cover the Jets.

So you’re saying he’s hungry? Not sure why it matters where he’s from... 

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Jet_Engine1

Jet_Engine1

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Not knocking the guys work ethic, and he'd he fine as a stringer... But this is an NFL team in the largest Media Market in the United States... I just find it strange that they hired someone so new and inexperienced to be the beat writer of an NFL franchise in a Major NYC pub.

 

Would expect a guy with his resume to start at the Bergen Record or something.  

 

Whatever. 

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20andOut

20andOut

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41 minutes ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

New writer is right out of college, not from the area, and has no real contacts or sources with the Jets. 

 

That's who the DN hired to cover the Jets.

Print media is dying, The Daily Snooze is one larger than expected phone bill away from bankruptcy

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Warfish

Warfish

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2 minutes ago, 20andOut said:

Print media is dying, The Daily Snooze is one larger than expected phone bill away from bankruptcy

That was my thought too, you're lucky each paper even has a beat reporter, and that they're not just doing pool reporting or buying coverage from one of the big news agencies at this point.

10-20 years from now, no one just hitting high school will even know what a "newspaper" is.

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Icer

Icer

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59 minutes ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

New writer is right out of college, not from the area, and has no real contacts or sources with the Jets. 

 

That's who the DN hired to cover the Jets.

I thought the same thing but so far DJ has asked some good questions on brief press interactions we've seen, at least better than the usual fare we get from Cimini/Connor/Cos

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20andOut

20andOut

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51 minutes ago, Warfish said:

That was my thought too, you're lucky each paper even has a beat reporter, and that they're not just doing pool reporting or buying coverage from one of the big news agencies at this point.

10-20 years from now, no one just hitting high school will even know what a "newspaper" is.

For most news stories that is already the case. The majority of stories in any newspaper and most websites come straight from AP maybe with some minor editing for space. AP has as much power in the media as twitter or FB but nobody hears about it.

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CTM

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8 minutes ago, SAR I said:

The Jets beat writer for the esteemed New York Daily News can’t doesn't know the difference between “apart” and “a part”. 

SAR I

Online grammar police can't doesn't type so well himself.

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Maxman

Maxman

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3 hours ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

New writer is right out of college, not from the area, and has no real contacts or sources with the Jets. 

 

That's who the DN hired to cover the Jets.

So you are admitting that Manish had sources?  :)

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Doggin94it

Doggin94it

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1 hour ago, DetroitRed said:

I thought it was a guy named McDonald who replaced Kanish?  Am I hallucinating?

No. Charles McDonald (@fourverts on twitter, great follow) was the guy who came in after Manish was banned and basically wrote all the stories and asked Manish's questions for him. Blasted Manish on his way out the door.

Good writer, knows football, now at USA Today's ForTheWin

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pointman

pointman

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3 hours ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

New writer is right out of college, not from the area, and has no real contacts or sources with the Jets. 

 

That's who the DN hired to cover the Jets.

Seriously, right? I mean, the Daily News is terrible but they finally upgraded something! Boom! Headshot!

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ryu79

ryu79

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This was a well written and researched article with a lot of nuggets I hadn't heard before. Good for DJ. 

I pray he doesn't go the way of Manish. 

Nuggets that are new for me:

- Prepping for practice with his girlfriend. Vs. our prior QBs getting mono or showing up on page six. This is a breath of fresh air to me. I have no problem with boys being boys, but all things equal if our qb's sniper girlfriend is really into football and helps him prepare, that's cool.

- Love the anecdote of him staying ahead of his coach with prep and knowing the opposition better. Great story that reflects why Lafleur loved him. Echoes the stories of him acing his interviews that Breer posted today too.

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fullblast

fullblast

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5 hours ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

New writer is right out of college, not from the area, and has no real contacts or sources with the Jets. 

 

That's who the DN hired to cover the Jets.

He’s also a Dolphins fan. lol.

Good post-draft feel good article though, I enjoyed it.

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David Harris

David Harris

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8 hours ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

New writer is right out of college, not from the area, and has no real contacts or sources with the Jets. 

 

That's who the DN hired to cover the Jets.

NYDN will soon start leaning on him to come up with controversy and get more clicks-
 

NY Post is owned by Murdoch who owns Fox News and WSJ and the stories coming out of how he controls the Post’s content is Machiavellian.  

both tabloid rags- like page 6 tho ? 

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Dunnie

Dunnie

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New writer is right out of college, not from the area, and has no real contacts or sources with the Jets. 
 
That's who the DN hired to cover the Jets.
Smart ... move on from the sh*te perspective so pervasive in these parts.

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

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Morrissey

Morrissey

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15 hours ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

Not knocking the guys work ethic, and he'd he fine as a stringer... But this is an NFL team in the largest Media Market in the United States... I just find it strange that they hired someone so new and inexperienced to be the beat writer of an NFL franchise in a Major NYC pub.

 

Would expect a guy with his resume to start at the Bergen Record or something.  

 

Whatever. 

not sure if you noticed but newspapers are broke. NYDN is hardly a local paper anymore. It's owned by Tribune who's MO is cost cutting

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Dcat

Dcat

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18 hours ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

New writer is right out of college (Columbia University Graduate School with a Masters in Journalism,) not from the area, and has no real contacts or sources with the Jets. 

That's who the DN hired to cover the Jets.

Just received a Masters degree from Columbia.  Let's hope Columbia Univ instilled some sense of journalism ethics and he doesn't become yet another puppet for the NYDN just to get clicks.

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Jet_Engine1

Jet_Engine1

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58 minutes ago, Dcat said:

Just received a Masters degree from Columbia.  Let's hope Columbia Univ instilled some sense of journalism ethics and he doesn't become yet another puppet for the NYDN just to get clicks.

He did an interview with one of the Jets YouTubers and it sounds like his hearts in the right place.

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