The real reason Zach hasn’t panned out?

[SAM SAM HE'S OUR MAN]

Zach is a lost cause . And the ones who suffer the most are the Jet fans .

[heymangold]

answer is because he isn't that good.  some analyst brought it up yesterday - none of the QBs in that draft are great.

tlaw has been ok - obviously the best of the bunch.

but zach and everyone after are awful.  lance, fields, mac.

the only debate is if they should have kept sam and used the 2nd pick to trade back or draft a guy like pitts or chase.

[JiFtheOracle]

He hasnt panned out because he was never going to pan out.  Everything you see from Zach was on full display in college, he just got away w/ it because of level of competition.  I'll never understand the pick for many reasons but mainly because he wasnt a good prospect but it happened and I dont think there is any reason to find scapegoats for a terrible Football player that was always going to be a terrible Football player. 

 

[Joe W. Namath]

Folks have mentioned this before but we need to address the qb position in the draft every year until we find the guy.  Since we took zach 3 years ago, there has not been a qb taken.  
 

It doesnt have to be a 1st round pick every year but take a guy in the 3rd, in the 5th etc.

Every draft one pick should be used on a qb until we have 2 solid ones on the roster.

[Dunnie]

The game has not slowed down for him.

He is a timid in the pocket playing as he was trained .. not to lose ... (This is completely clear now)

He doesn't know how to lead men, He says the right things, is a good guy ... but doesn't garner defenders or followers.

He has no sense of pacing or rhythm. And he is not prioritizing that first above trying to make a play by holding the ball and praying. ...

He is succeeding at not throwing ints at the cost of not throwing TDs.

He is not anticipating throws .. he is waiting to see if guys come open.

Zach is lost .. he has talent ... But it is not resulting in good QB play ... I don't see any path forward where this ends well on the Jets.

Rodgers, Brady, Maholmes, Montana, Favre, Marino, Aikman ...  would never play not to lose... no matter what the coach said.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Dunnie

[thebuzzardman]

8 hours ago, Joe W. Namath said:

Zach is Augustus Gloop?

He's more Veruca Salt

[rangerous]

7 hours ago, Warfish said:

Because he was an extremely flawed prospect, with poor height, extremely poor field vision and decision making and intuition, is a single-read, limited football-intelligence passer, who played an extremely weak college level of competition, and was and is not a terribly accurate thrower of the football.  Apart from sheer arm strength (which he has plenty) and some degree of mobility (which he clearly has but uses quite poorly), and the whole "off platform gunslinger" B.S., he was and is missing almost all the talents of a true franchise QB.  "Developing" Zach would have taken several years of watching, learning, not starting, and (crucially) Zach being able to take on that development, which ultimately I do not believe he was capable of doing.

End of the day, he was simply a poor pick.  A GM fell in love with an arm, not a QB.  

I beg to differ, there is an sizeable amount of doubt that Zach would be decent regardless of who drafted him.

Some good points but Zach isn’t the first single read qb who has been a top 5 pick.  Rothelisberger was a one read qb for his first couple of seasons.  I’m guessing josh Allen was (and maybe still is).   The difference is some of these guys go to more established teams so they don’t need to carry the team.  And Zach is improving.  One of the metrics is he’s passing extremely well when he gets rid of the ball quickly.  It’s when he takes a lot of time that his passing is poor.  Most likely this is due to the pass rush and him trying to scramble instead of throwing the ball away.  Give him a run game and better one read pass plays and he might surprise.

[thebuzzardman]

8 hours ago, bitonti said:

He's Mike teevee all the way 

Too much aggressiveness and confidence

[Rich Thornburgh]

11 minutes ago, Joe W. Namath said:

Folks have mentioned this before but we need to address the qb position in the draft every year until we find the guy.  Since we took zach 3 years ago, there has not been a qb taken.  
 

It doesnt have to be a 1st round pick every year but take a guy in the 3rd, in the 5th etc.

Every draft one pick should be used on a qb until we have 2 solid ones on the roster.

We absolutely need to draft a qb in round 1 next May

[Dunnie]

5 minutes ago, Rich Thornburgh said:

We absolutely need to draft a qb in round 1 next May

[Rich Thornburgh]

23 minutes ago, JiF said:

He hasnt panned out because he was never going to pan out.  Everything you see from Zach was on full display in college, he just got away w/ it because of level of competition.  I'll never understand the pick for many reasons but mainly because he wasnt a good prospect but it happened and I dont think there is any reason to find scapegoats for a terrible Football player that was always going to be a terrible Football player. 

 

This.

 

The people who were screaming about Zach being better than Trevor Lawrence coming out of college is a special case of mass delusion.  One good statistical season facing bottom feeder competition- and he wasn’t a great physical specimen like a Josh Allen or Anthony Richardson

[Larz]

9 hours ago, bitonti said:

It's never Zachs fault 

It's always someone else's fault 

Poor Zach Wilson who got everything he ever wanted in life and never earned any of it 

He's like a side character in Charlie and the chocolate factory. One of the kids that falls in the river or something 

Zach salt 

[The Crusher]

8 hours ago, Warfish said:

Because he was an extremely flawed prospect, with poor height, extremely poor field vision and decision making and intuition, is a single-read, limited football-intelligence passer, who played an extremely weak college level of competition, and was and is not a terribly accurate thrower of the football.  Apart from sheer arm strength (which he has plenty) and some degree of mobility (which he clearly has but uses quite poorly), and the whole "off platform gunslinger" B.S., he was and is missing almost all the talents of a true franchise QB.  "Developing" Zach would have taken several years of watching, learning, not starting, and (crucially) Zach being able to take on that development, which ultimately I do not believe he was capable of doing.

End of the day, he was simply a poor pick.  A GM fell in love with an arm, not a QB.  

I beg to differ, there is an sizeable amount of doubt that Zach would be decent regardless of who drafted him.

Woah, , nice post dude. Put this badboy on audio book! 

[Matt39]

36 minutes ago, rangerous said:

Some good points but Zach isn’t the first single read qb who has been a top 5 pick.  Rothelisberger was a one read qb for his first couple of seasons.  I’m guessing josh Allen was (and maybe still is).   The difference is some of these guys go to more established teams so they don’t need to carry the team.  And Zach is improving.  One of the metrics is he’s passing extremely well when he gets rid of the ball quickly.  It’s when he takes a lot of time that his passing is poor.  Most likely this is due to the pass rush and him trying to scramble instead of throwing the ball away.  Give him a run game and better one read pass plays and he might surprise.

Zach is also 24 going on 16. He was never going to fit in a nfl locker room either. Way too coddled and doesn’t know any better (not his fault).

[Bobby816]

There's so much we did wrong IMO.

For starters I never liked Wilson. I actually wanted Fields. Not that he's doing any better... but I felt he was a "safer" option.

It became pretty clear a bit before the draft though that we were going to draft Wilson 2nd. So there was no sense of debating that still. So I tried thinking of the optimistic side of things with him.

The big red flags with him for me was the level of play he had to play against at BYU. As well as how good his OL and skill guys were compared to the guys they were going against. Let's also not forget he wasn't that good as a sophomore. Where he had to fight for his job as a junior. So his sample size of games he played good in was just his junior year.

There's a HUGE difference between a guy who played 2 good seasons at let's say Ohio State, Alabama, etc. then there is a guy who played 1 good year at BYU.

Wilson shouldn't had started right away bc of these reasons. He was far from a polished prospect. We also had not the best weapons at that time. So he was pretty much pissing into the wind as a rookie.

All that being said... he had some bright spots as a rookie. Was playing backyard ball too much. But as a rookie from a smaller school, did about what I'd expect. We added some weapons his 2nd year (GW, Hall) and there was some optimism. And we did add Flacco as a backup to help (which he did have to play a few weeks).

Last year for me he showed he did mature there for a time period. Easy to forget he when he came back from injury was 5-0 as the starter. Not bc of him. But he wasn't loosing us games. Much like our 4 wins this year. But then after a rough loss to NE he seemed to just go down hill. Showed his immaturity with the media, locker room, etc.

 

We all knew pretty much this last offseason we were going to do something at QB to where Wilson would be the backup. Rodgers was rumored very early in the offseason and there was still a guy like Carr there as another option. So the thoughts behind Wilson then changed to developing him. Which is what we should've done with him as a rookie. Not in Year 3.

 

And to judge him this year I think is hard. He wasn't supposed to start. Wasn't working with starters. His mindset was to learn. Not to play. So yes he's been bad. But pretty much every teams backup QB isnt good.

[Jetsfan80]

9 hours ago, wediditjoe said:

Hahaha no one is capable of having a normal conversation when it comes to Zach.

Obviously he sucks, that wasn’t the question. The question was why does he suck and the original question was what makes anyone think the Jets are capable of developing any QB, not just Zach. There’s no doubt Zach would be decent if the 9ers drafted him that year.

It’s a nature vs nurture discussion you’re going for here.  You’re going with primarily nurture, which requires far more assumptions and mental gymnastics.

Primarily nature is the better answer, because he’s a slow processor.  That is the source of nearly all his problems, as it is for most QB busts.  

It’s the most important trait to have and very few QBs have it, and it’s also the most difficult trait to assess or project out of college prospects.  Though when you watch tape of Zach vs the few tough opponents he faced at BYU, you see a lot of the same stuff he does on the field today.  Funny how that works. 

The late Greg Knapp would not have been able to fix that.  

It’s just science, dude.  DNA accounts for ~ 65 % of what we are and what we are capable of.  Zach doesn’t have the right stuff to be a successful pro QB. 

[#27TheDominator]

50 minutes ago, rangerous said:

Some good points but Zach isn’t the first single read qb who has been a top 5 pick.  Rothelisberger was a one read qb for his first couple of seasons.  I’m guessing josh Allen was (and maybe still is).   The difference is some of these guys go to more established teams so they don’t need to carry the team.  And Zach is improving.  One of the metrics is he’s passing extremely well when he gets rid of the ball quickly.  It’s when he takes a lot of time that his passing is poor.  Most likely this is due to the pass rush and him trying to scramble instead of throwing the ball away.  Give him a run game and better one read pass plays and he might surprise.

Roethlisberger and Allen were both physical freaks that could shuck off a pass rush.  Not guys getting mobility points for pirouetting around back there.  That's why I preferred Lance.  I think he was a crazy choice at 2/3, but at least he was a freak.  Crazy thing is that as recently as last September Shanahan was ready to roll with him as starter.

[Jetsfan80]

9 hours ago, wediditjoe said:

Hahaha no one is capable of having a normal conversation when it comes to Zach.

Obviously he sucks, that wasn’t the question. The question was why does he suck and the original question was what makes anyone think the Jets are capable of developing any QB, not just Zach. There’s no doubt Zach would be decent if the 9ers drafted him that year.

Also….If QB development mattered more than QB prospect evaluation, surely we’d have seen more bad QBs (like Sanchez, Darnold, etc) go on to success at other stops than we have, wouldn’t we?  

I guarantee you Zach flames out in his subsequent stops in the league.  He’ll be done in the NFL when he’s no older than 28 and will be color commentating BYU games from the booth.

[JetPotato]

I bet it has nothing to do with Zach being scared and dumb.

[carlito1171]

The real REAL reason why Zach hasn't panned out is because he sucks, can't process the field, and was wayyyyy overdrafted because JD fell in love with some rocket throws in shorts at his pro day(Prob some Woody/Jetblue influence somewhere in there too) 

[Warfish]

2 hours ago, rangerous said:

And Zach is improving.

I'm sorry, but he is not.  Not in any meaningful way.

He is not "going to surprise".  He's going to play out his time, be it end of this year, or backing up end of next, then he will be on his way into the post-Jets Sanchez/Darnold/Geno portion of his career, as a 2nd chance backup somewhere, until in a few seasons, he washes out of the league.

It's not a question of if, it's just a question of when.

[Larz]

Bobby jones famously said about golf :

“In golf, the most important distance is the five inches between the ears”

I’m 100% certain at a white board zach could explain and diagnose everything perfectly.  
 

there’s just something that gets wonky with him during a real play. His decision making is almost random like a gamer just pressing buttons hoping something good happens. 
 

The first or second game, remember when he sacked himself? That was so odd. Then last week the play where he could have easily run for a first down but he passed to a guy with a defender standing behind him. The 4th and 10 sack.  The preseason run where he didn’t go out of bounds after getting injured in preseason the year before. 5 people said “hey man just go out of bounds “.  He said he thought he could score. 
 

He just doesn’t have the feel or instincts to consistently make the right decisions on when to let it go, run for yards, run to buy time, throw it away or put 2 hands on the ball and take the sack. 
 

unfortunately we’ve had so much experience with not smart rookie QBs the first thing I look for is throwing it away when the play is dead. He still can’t do that. 
 

I read a few scouting reports on him this morning. The consensus was first or second round pick, borderline starter.  
 

it’s weird , that’s what he is. 
 

the failure was the GM taking him at 2 after trading Sam. 
 

[HighPitch]

Im tired hearing about knapp RIP.

He probably would have wound up sucking like all these other coaches. True lore

[ChuckkieB]

10 hours ago, bitonti said:

The niners literally drafted a qb that year trey Lance that they couldn't develop 

They did 3 things the Jets couldn't... Draft another one for competition, admit they made a bad pick, and move on 

They did not pass on Purdy to protect trey 

This is truly the biggest failure.  It's not that the Jets and JD made a bad pick with Wilson, it's that JD has been unwilling to fully admit and move on from the bad pick by first allowing Wilson to remain the #2 after Rodgers was signed and then not immediately going out and getting a capable veteran to run the show or at least push Wilson for the starting job post Rodgers injury.

Sticking with Wilson this long is baffling and in incredibly poor organizational decision.  The question is....why?  Is Woody Johnson really pulling the strings here? Is JD just a stubborn and arrogant douche? Is Saleh truly a meathead who refuses to say anything negative or hold Wilson in any way accountable? I hope at least after this entire regime and Wilson are long gone from this team that the answer will finally be revealed.

[Claymation]

11 hours ago, More Cowbell said:

At some point you have to come to terms with what you have. There is enough talent on the team for a QB to be successful if they can pass the ball and read a defense. Zach has shown to be lacking in both areas. I don't  think even Andy Reid can get Zach to look like an NFL QB. Watching Zach during pregame warm ups told me a lot as I look back on it now. He looked like he didn't  have a care in the world, smiling while doing stretching and agility drills. This was literally minutes before the game. Where is the intensity,  where is the game face. This is not how a guy who has  not thrown a TD in his last few games should look. 

Did the Jets trade two 2nds to get Rodgers? The Jets were moving on, and this cursed franchise had worse case scenario happen.

[Gibby]

[Jet_Engine1]

11 hours ago, bitonti said:

It's never Zachs fault 

It's always someone else's fault 

Poor Zach Wilson who got everything he ever wanted in life and never earned any of it 

He's like a side character in Charlie and the chocolate factory. One of the kids that falls in the river or something 

"Mommy, studying is hard, and so are the playbooks!"

 

"OK, my sweet, darling, Perfect angel! I'll call Doctor Mike tomorrow and we'll get you an ADHD diagnosis and the magical Adderall medicine will fix everything for you...."

 

That was speculative satire, btw ^.

 

But getting Adderall is about that easy, plenty of guys go to their docs and tell them they're having problems "concentrating" and boom, walk out with a 3 month prescription to study for promotional exams.

 

The problem is that it doesn't make you smarter....

[UntouchableCrew]

Honestly, the Jets have “ruined” QB prospects before. Darnold and Geno were both guys who were setup to fail.

Zach walked into a pretty good spot. He’s just really bad.

[THE BARON]

10 hours ago, Warfish said:

Because he was an extremely flawed prospect, with poor height, extremely poor field vision and decision making and intuition, is a single-read, limited football-intelligence passer, who played an extremely weak college level of competition, and was and is not a terribly accurate thrower of the football.  Apart from sheer arm strength (which he has plenty) and some degree of mobility (which he clearly has but uses quite poorly), and the whole "off platform gunslinger" B.S., he was and is missing almost all the talents of a true franchise QB.  "Developing" Zach would have taken several years of watching, learning, not starting, and (crucially) Zach being able to take on that development, which ultimately I do not believe he was capable of doing.

End of the day, he was simply a poor pick.  A GM fell in love with an arm, not a QB.  

I beg to differ, there is an sizeable amount of doubt that Zach would be decent regardless of who drafted him.

I had Wilson on my do-not-draft list that year along with Fields. I *really* wanted the Jets to get Trevor Lawrence and I had a total fan meltdown when they won those two meaningless games and blew it big time,  I knew they lost out on a franchise QB and wound up with a total bust before Wilson took his first snap and a Jet.  I also believed that Mac Joes was a high floor low ceiling guy that would probably wind up going to the Pats.  

My feeling on Trey Lance was neutral.  The only grade I could give him was "incomplete".  I could see what the 49ers were attracted to, though.  And here is the rub... Yes, it was a reach and I knew it as did they, but unlike the Jets, the 49'ers were in a very good spot to use a 1st rounder as a "luxury" pick.  They had the circumstances and smarts to either develop him, or get by nicely even if he didn't "BOOM" as hoped.  

Once again... I have to say.  Zach Wilson is not the Jets illness.  He's just a symptom.

Through Idzik, Butt Fumble, Mr. Coffee, Gase, Darnold, and now ZW there is one and only one common denominator.

WOODY.  The quintessential disfunction that never ends. 

A heart felt request to all Jet fans.  Please ignore the smoke screen of ZW bashing and look up.  

THE SAME OWNER GUARANTEES THE SAME RESULTS.

 

[Ron Rico]

Another one of Lisa Wilson's Mult accounts. 

OK, I'll bite.

Zach Wilson is a bust, not even a run of the mill bust, but an epic bust. Sack Wilson will replace DeMarcus Russell as the proverbial example future generations will use as a metaphor for the word "bust".

Look up the word bust in the dictionary? There's Sack Wilsons photo. 

JD has known this for two years now (at least but maybe longer). Saleh is going to start Sack Wilson Sunday against the Raiders. When asked why, his answer is "Sack gives us the best chance to win." 

Oh really? You've kept this bust on the roster, no lower than number 2 on the depth chart, for three years and you have the balls to say "he's our only option"???

The time to clean house was the end of last season. JD, Saleh, Sack, all should have been bounced. I knew it then, that if they all stayed, we would be right where we are, right now. 

Woody, JD and Saleh sold us a bunch of snake oil by getting Aaron Rodgers. During that fiasco, I came to the conclusion that they never really were going to sign Aaron, that it was all Kabuki Theatre and they intention was to start Sack Wilson in 2023. I even said it a few times, and of course, I was derisively dismissed. When they actually did sign Arodge, I was pleasantly surprised. 

But they never got a back up QB. 

They didn't prioritize the O-line. They used their first rounder to draft Ichabod Crane. They drafted Carter Warren in the 4th round, who started the season already injured. The Jets O-line are the sick bay commandos, and you draft another injured guard???

I'm not suggesting this was all by design, because there is no way you can plan a season around your FA HOF QB acquisition going down without making a single pass----

But at some time during the season, you have to plan on a starter having an injury where he needs to be replaced for a series, a game or two, or even the rest of the season. Every GM ponders this and plans accordingly.

JD decided Sack Wilson would be that guy. Sack Wilson, the epic bust. The bust that any other team would have sh*tcanned 2 years ago. Last year. A month ago.

Nope.

Sack Wilson is starting Sunday, because "he gives us the best chance to win". 

I don't know what more I have to do or say at this point to make you see the light. JD and Saleh deserve to be fired. 

This is worse than what Josh McDaniels did to the Raiders. FAR WORSE. 

Oh, I know, much of the fanbase has stockholm syndrome, and has grown to love JD and Saleh, and will defend them and attack any and all critics. Or they'll say "Yeah, but, Woody will just hire someone worse."

We are one big dysfunctional family. 

[Jetsfan80]

8 minutes ago, UntouchableCrew said:

Honestly, the Jets have “ruined” QB prospects before. Darnold and Geno were both guys who were setup to fail.

Zach walked into a pretty good spot. He’s just really bad.

Why isn’t Darnold successful elsewhere, then?  Why did it take Geno Smith 9.5 years to end up a “meh” starter?

QBs can indeed be ruined but this franchise is really just historically bad at identifying quality QB prospects.  

[#27TheDominator]

The 49ers were in a good spot to use a 1st rounder on a luxury pick?  Maybe.  Is there a good spot to use their 2021 1st (#12 overall), their 2022 1st,  their 2022 3rd and 2023 1st?

[Ron Rico]

27 minutes ago, THE BARON said:

WOODY.  The quintessential disfunction that never ends. 

A heart felt request to all Jet fans.  Please ignore the smoke screen of ZW bashing and look up.  

THE SAME OWNER GUARANTEES THE SAME RESULTS.

 

You know it's worse than you thought, when this guy has the sense to cut his losses, and JD, Saleh and Sack will be back in 2024

[UntouchableCrew]

56 minutes ago, Jetsfan80 said:

Why isn’t Darnold successful elsewhere, then?  Why did it take Geno Smith 9.5 years to end up a “meh” starter?

QBs can indeed be ruined but this franchise is really just historically bad at identifying quality QB prospects.  

Because they weren't good enough to overcome bad circumstances. I'm not saying either guy is a perennial Pro Bowler if not for the Jets but I think situation is important to a young QB.

Darnold is a flawed player but I think in the right circumstances he can be okay. If Purdy were to go out long term, for instance, I think there's a strong possibility he plays well. Hell, I legitimately think Darnold was starting to turn a corner under Jeremy Bates and would have been better if we didn't completely fail in hiring Gase.

Geno's immaturity killed him but what he's done is Seattle is clearly what he's capable of doing in the league. Frankly, Geno is an argument in support of what I'm saying not against.

Both of those guys walked into really tough circumstances. How much better would they have been on another team? We don't know, obviously, but the point is they were set up to fail here and you would have had to have been a total stud to make it as QB of the 2013-14 Jets or 2018-20 Jets.

Wilson was set up to succeed pretty well IMO. He just sucks.

[Jetkwondo]

And my daughter's grand master in TKD, who is a big Raiders fan, told me last night that Zack Wilson will rebound and win against his team going on the Raiders normal track record ... We almost got into a good natured disagreement about who would blow it as I said his team is playing with a new freedom to win while we play tight and not to lose... pathetic "trash talking"... lol

Funny thing is the grand master also told me the Jets just need Zach Wilson to be Trent Dilfer after Rodgers went down week 1, and guess what, that's almost exactly the way Zach has been playing although with half the TD's and Int's as Dilfer had that season. Only problem is our D is very good but they are not as dominating as the Ravens were that year.

There's some really good analysis of breaking down Zack and this organization's questionable moves which unfortunately this team has to live with right now. I predict only more questioning in the days ahead, with of course the hope that we open up things and play faster and live with the interceptions that may come with letting Zach rip it like in the KC game.