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Zach’s “breakout” game


Rhg1084

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28 minutes ago, Warfish said:

"Adjusted Completion Percentage". 

i.e. take every pass near a receiver or that hit any part of a receiver and presume it should have been caught, ignoring the role of the pass itself in the drop.

The question people should be asking is why has every receiver on the Jets suddenly become unable to catch when Zach is playing QB.

:-k

I would argue that Zach is both:

  • Inaccurate i.e. does not hit his receivers cleanly or in stride, but is often throwing behind them, over their heads, short, etc.
  • Lacks touch.  i.e. Is often unable to throw passes at appropriate velocities for the situation i.e. he often throws too hard or way too soft.  Hard bounces off players expecting lighter touch passes, soft comes up short or behind.  

If folks want to think the Eagles game is a "breakout" because of his 'adjusted completion percentage', as opposed to actual completion percentage, have fun.  Personally, I feel like we're in the same place we were with sub-60% Sam Darnold, where some here at JN liked to think he had "elite accuracy", while ignoring he could barely scratch a bottom-of-NFL 60% rate of actual completions.  

Zach is a 58% passer, 32nd in the NFL, worse even than Darnold was as a rookie. 

And no, watching the specific drops, they are not all on the RB's and WR's just sucking as pass catchers.  I think it's telling that the other Jets QB's, playing with the same receivers, have compl. %'s of 66.7, 64.4 and 64.3.

The problem also is fans of a team tend to "count" dropped passes as completions for the QB and then compare that to the "real" stats of other QBs. The mean # of drops per NFL team is 12.4 this year. Jets have 15. So a bit above average. Meanwhile, there is no correlation between teams with much higher than average drops and whether their QB is good or not by objective QB metrics, in fact the opposite case could be made since good QBs are usually trusted to throw more by their teams. Some examples:

  • Chargers -- 24 drops (most in NFL) -- Good QB
  • Panthers -- 22 drops -- Bad QB(s)
  • KC -- 17 drops -- Good QB
  • Rams -- 17 drops -- Good QB
  • Bonus: Giants -- 15 drops -- Bad QB (But still light-years better than Wilson. Yes, even as a rookie 41.1 QBR v. 24.8).
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1 minute ago, More Cowbell said:

What do you want me to say. Zach had a chance to score after every time the Eagles did. I know the D is horrible but that doesn't  mean when they get the ball back they need to freaking punt on every possession

Eh, don't bother saying anything

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13 minutes ago, Warfish said:

I presume you don't mean the ball nearish to the end-zone that Moore had to seriously elevate to have a shot at, and that the Eagles DB had his hand in between Moore's hands and broke up?

It's times like this I REALLY wish we had a YouTube of the whole game, and we could support our claims with timestamps in that video. 

Makes it much easier to discuss a play if we can see it again.

3:31 mark. 

I had forgotten, this was the play immediately before the interception. I would argue this was one of the biggest plays in the second half. If we hit on that play, we have a first down inside the 25 and maybe we cut it to a 1 TD lead? 

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1 hour ago, Barry McCockinner said:

lol - I wouldn't call it a "breakout" game but definitely improvement and something to build on.

A breakout game IMO would be something like 300+ yards passing, 65+% completions, 3+ TD's, max 1 INT that results in a win in a competitive game.

a win in a competitive game would require a defense who can stop the other team from scoring and can give the QB the ball back. While 18 points (maybe 21 with a kicker who can hit an XP) won't win many games, if the defense held the Eagles to 24 or so points and gave Zack the ball back a few more times he would have had a shot.

Remember that Mac Jones is given a great defense, and is not expected to put the game on his shoulders - this is how Brady was eased into his first SB. 

Give Zack a few more quality WRs or TEs and a great defense and then you can ask him to give you some wins.

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He definitely seemed to be making quicker and better decisions. I only recall two bad decisions. The INT was a bad decision and an errant throw. He had another throw that was a bad decision and was off target but was not INT.

Big step forward. Now he needs to take another big step when it comes to ball placement. Could be driven by pressure.

Per PFF:

Clean Pocket: 113.3 passer rating

Under Pressure: 20.1 passer rating

Unfortunately, he is now under a big microscope. He's going to be critiqued until he has a couple of games where he plays well for 4 quarters. 

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Where it really seemed to unravel, and I forgot the actual time in the game that this occurred, was when there was a 3 step drop, and the ball needed come out, and instead he tried to whirl around and a rusher was right on him, and he took the sack. 

He has GOT to know when a play is not there and cut his losses. he is pressing way too much.

It just seemed after that brain lock, everything fell part and he was second guessing himself, rather than flowing.

 

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The last 5 weeks will be telling.  Every QB progresses differently but I remember the last 4 weeks of Sam Darnolds rookie season where he was playing at a top 10 QB level.   He was throwing to Robby Anderson, Quincy Enunwa and Herndon.  He also missed time due to injury.

You can't tell me the receivers we have are not better that what he had.  We need to see something to end this season to make us optimistic.  Obviously Darnold didn't pan out but if he could play that well with his supporting cast then there's no reason Zach can't with his.  

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4 minutes ago, bostonmajet said:

a win in a competitive game would require a defense who can stop the other team from scoring and can give the QB the ball back. While 18 points (maybe 21 with a kicker who can hit an XP) won't win many games, if the defense held the Eagles to 24 or so points and gave Zack the ball back a few more times he would have had a shot.

Remember that Mac Jones is given a great defense, and is not expected to put the game on his shoulders - this is how Brady was eased into his first SB. 

Give Zack a few more quality WRs or TEs and a great defense and then you can ask him to give you some wins.

The Pats also can run the ball very well. Look, nobody is giving our D a pass. They made Minshew look like Montana but why is it getting shut out in the second half is ok? I mean could they at least score once? They were playing well in the first half. 

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20 minutes ago, Warfish said:

I presume you don't mean the ball nearish to the end-zone that Moore had to seriously elevate to have a shot at, and that the Eagles DB had his hand in between Moore's hands and broke up?

It's times like this I REALLY wish we had a YouTube of the whole game, and we could support our claims with timestamps in that video. 

Makes it much easier to discuss a play if we can see it again.

Funny thing is Moore had Slay beat pretty bad on that play and Zach just completely underthrew it, causing Moore to come back into it.  Moore also had a “drop” in the end zone and a “drop” in the middle of the field, both which hit his fingertips as he practically laid out.  They certainly weren’t Stephen Hill level of drops.

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12 minutes ago, slimjasi said:

3:31 mark. 

I had forgotten, this was the play immediately before the interception. I would argue this was one of the biggest plays in the second half. If we hit on that play, we have a first down inside the 25 and maybe we cut it to a 1 TD lead? 

I really want to see the All-22 on this one.  Did Moore sit down and Zach expect him to keep going?  Was he always on the move but it was just a bad throw?  Really curious about this, because we don't really have all the information yet.

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12 minutes ago, slimjasi said:

3:31 mark. 

I had forgotten, this was the play immediately before the interception. I would argue this was one of the biggest plays in the second half. If we hit on that play, we have a first down inside the 25 and maybe we cut it to a 1 TD lead? 

Thanks for the time stamp.

That was definitely “catchable”, but how many fingertip, layout catches do we expect our rookie WR to have a game? It would have been nice if a wide open Elijah Moore was able to catch it standing up and run around the DB for a TD.

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4 minutes ago, KRL said:

- Davis has been a big disappointment at WR.  Too many drops, no acrobatic catches to help
out Wilson and too many inuries.  With this being the case and Mims not doing anything I
wouldn't be against drafting a WR in the 2nd-3rd round  

Good post.  However I think the WR's are serviceable at this point and we can't plug all the gaps at once.  I would go for a pass catching TE over a WR in the draft.  It looks like the OCS knows what they are doing, and we've seen what this base offense can do with an extremely talented TE receiving threat.  I want it.  Please.

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3 minutes ago, T0mShane said:

I don’t feel like being down twelve points in an NFL football game is an adequate excuse for a quarterback to lose his marbles.

I don’t think anyone saw it as losing his marbles.  But hey to each their own.  

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9 minutes ago, Darnold's Forehead said:

Thanks for the time stamp.

That was definitely “catchable”, but how many fingertip, layout catches do we expect our rookie WR to have a game? It would have been nice if a wide open Elijah Moore was able to catch it standing up and run around the DB for a TD.

I think it was a timing issue. 

It looked like Wilson expected Moore to break to the sideline and Moore kinda stopped. 

Still a ball that has to be caught. Especially in such a critical moment. 

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Just now, T0mShane said:

So how does this work? Zach Wilson was great in the first half, but then he had no line and no weapons in the second half? Did the rest of the team quit at halftime or

The excuse that can justify his second half performance is lack of opportunity especially in the 3rd quarter.  

The bar is so low here.  At this point I'm not looking just for progress.  I'm looking for good QB play.  The he's a rookie, no weapons etc excuses are just that.  Excuses.  

At some point the QB has to perform in spite of the underwhelming circumstances he's in.  

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37 minutes ago, T0mShane said:

He was 11 for 24 with an INT in the second half

And he was 5 of 7 on the last meaningless drive w/ under 2 minutes.   So, he was 6 for 17 w/ a pick and no scores when they absolutely had to have answer. Strange that people are going these distances to defend his 2nd half.  He was terrible but whatevs, at least we saw a good first half and I think he's just pressing when he knows it's on him to answer.  He's just not ready for that type of pressure, clearly and I'm sure in the back of his mind he knows that he has to score because his D cant stop a nose-bleed.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, JiFapono said:

He definitely seems to press when he knows he needs a have a big drive or make a key play.  I think he's the definition of "gripping the bat too tight" in those situations and it's why he suddenly losses all control of his accuracy and looks to leave the pocket too early in effort to "make a play".  

The bottom line is, he's way to raw to overcome the deficiencies of this roster.  The Jets need damn near perfection out of their offense to be competitive and he's just far far far from that point right now but again, silver linings, he looked like a different player in the first half. 

completely different player and actually threw the ball today.  I had felt he was trying to take some off on a lot of throws especially last week after he let some rip and guys couldnt handle it.  But to take some off last week he appeared to be short arming the throws which is why they were a mess.  This week, especially in the first half, he looked like he was taking his normal throws and figured out how to keep within his mechanics when putting some touch on the throws. Big difference in that first half. 

The lack of talent on the outside on offense is very apparent though.  The jets need another 1-2 WR's and another 1-2 TE's in order to field a functional offense.  No one outside of Moore is able to produce much of anything out there. 

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51 minutes ago, slimjasi said:

What does this mean? 

The Jets were 1-4 in games in which White, Flacco, or Johnson played a significant portion of the game. 

In those games the Jets scored: 

13 points vs. Patriots  - loss (worst loss of the season)

34 points vs. Bengals - win (best win of the season?)

30 points vs. Colts (but were down 42-7 before Josh Johnson came in for some extended mop up duty) - loss

17 points vs. Bills (blowout loss - probably the second worst loss of the season)

17 points vs. the Dolphins (loss)

This narrative that the Jets offense was rolling without Wilson is so overblown 

 

I agree with this. The O has not functioned well but thebQB play with the exception of the second half against Tn. And the first half yesterday  looked better than when Zach played. 

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31 minutes ago, jgb said:

The problem also is fans of a team tend to "count" dropped passes as completions for the QB and then compare that to the "real" stats of other QBs. The mean # of drops per NFL team is 12.4 this year. Jets have 15. So a bit above average. Meanwhile, there is no correlation between teams with much higher than average drops and whether their QB is good or not by objective QB metrics, in fact the opposite case could be made since good QBs are usually trusted to throw more by their teams. Some examples:

  • Chargers -- 24 drops (most in NFL) -- Good QB
  • Panthers -- 22 drops -- Bad QB(s)
  • KC -- 17 drops -- Good QB
  • Rams -- 17 drops -- Good QB
  • Bonus: Giants -- 15 drops -- Bad QB (But still light-years better than Wilson. Yes, even as a rookie 41.1 QBR v. 24.8).

I read on here how Diontae Johnson had 5 drops in one prime time game.  A week or two later Collingsworth was going on and on about how Johnson had cleaned up his drop issues and only had one on the season.  I don't think it is an "official" stat and the people tracking it seem to be all over the map.  Every ball you can get your hand on and don't bring in is not a drop.  In that 2nd half saw plenty of balls that were not caught after hitting a receiver that were more on Wilson than the receiver.  I don't know what you people saw, but I doubt I'd care.

FWIW, I prefer the old QB rating to QBR.  Especially for a kid like Wilson.  Doesn't QBR have some inflated value on clutch/important moments?  That's nice, but the Jets have had none.  I just want him to complete passes for yards, 1st downs and TDs.  If he starts doing that the rest will come.

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3 minutes ago, Chrebetfan80 said:

completely different player and actually threw the ball today.  I had felt he was trying to take some off on a lot of throws especially last week after he let some rip and guys couldnt handle it.  But to take some off last week he appeared to be short arming the throws which is why they were a mess.  This week, especially in the first half, he looked like he was taking his normal throws and figured out how to keep within his mechanics when putting some touch on the throws. Big difference in that first half. 

The lack of talent on the outside on offense is very apparent though.  The jets need another 1-2 WR's and another 1-2 TE's in order to field a functional offense.  No one outside of Moore is able to produce much of anything out there. 

I think the WR's are fine.  Crowder, Davis, Cole - have all had great careers with sh*tty QB's.  Not sure if it's Zach, the scheme or what but I really dont think weaponz are an excuse.  I think they definitely need a receiving threat at TE and maybe another WR incase Mims never comes around but I dont think the issues were seeing is because of a lack of skills players.  Plenty of teams have a lot less and are doing a lot more.  Remember, this offense for 4 weeks while Zach was out, led the NFL in yards.

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22 minutes ago, rtnelson said:

I really want to see the All-22 on this one.  Did Moore sit down and Zach expect him to keep going?  Was he always on the move but it was just a bad throw?  Really curious about this, because we don't really have all the information yet.

Right. Looks like a timing issue. Looked to me like Moore stopped and Wilson expected him to keep moving. Either way, I think that is a catch that should be made. Hit him in the hands. 

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3 minutes ago, JiFapono said:

I think the WR's are fine.  Crowder, Davis, Cole - have all had great careers with sh*tty QB's.  Not sure if it's Zach, the scheme or what but I really dont think weaponz are an excuse.  I think they definitely need a receiving threat at TE and maybe another WR incase Mims never comes around but I dont think the issues were seeing is because of a lack of skills players.  Plenty of teams have a lot less and are doing a lot more.  Remember, this offense for 4 weeks while Zach was out, led the NFL in yards.

Wouldn't say Davis has had "a great career" given his physical talent. The Jets would probably at least consider replacing him in the offseason if not for that contract. 

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To KRL’s points:

  • I agree that 3/4 top picks should be defense.  The 1/4 offense needs to be someone who catches passers.  After that load up on best available players.
  • I would really try and lock up this line as is, and then build with 3rd round and below draft picks.  So we should be extending LDT and Moses, and let Fant and McGovern roll on their contracts.   JD thought he would be getting out of those cap spends, but he should not.  Feeney or GVR should not be on the team next year.   The Jets are picking too high for Linderbaum, but if he slips to Rd2 would likely be an attractive option.  
  • Use FA money for more weapons for Zach and better value OL.  

Pro Football Reference, among other sources, has a good compilation of QB statistics by year.  After the end of the season we will look at Zach’s season as compared to season 1 of Josh Allen and Sam Darnold, among others.  We will keep in mind that at the end of their first seasons, people were optimistic about Sam and Baker Mayfield, and pessimistic about Josh Allen.  

I don’t think we can underestimate the value of character and work ethic.  I would expect that in 4 years we are in a Baker Mayfield situation with Zach Wilson, not Darnold, and not Josh Allen.   I think Zach is going to work very hard to get better.  We heard he has ADHD-I manage one of those myself.  It tends to take them longer to pick stuff up, but they get it eventually.  That also appears to be the pattern with Zach generally.  He stumbles and then takes off.  I would expect a much better Zach next year, but not Josh Allen. 

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