At What Point Do Jets Fans Get Excited About Zach Wilson?
After Saturday’s game vs. the Giants and the past few weeks of training camp, Jets fans are all jumping on the Zach Wilson hype train. I’ve been seeing a lot of things like “Zach Wilson is the real deal,” and “He’s gonna win offensive rookie of the year.”
So the real question here is this: is the Zach Wilson hype warranted?
ZW In Practice
So there have been several practices where we have heard from the media that Wilson has not performed to his best abilities. In fact, it seems like there were a lot of practices where he performed, well, exactly like a rookie is expected to perform.
Wilson seems to be making a lot of risky throws in practice thus resulting in a lot of incompletions and bad turnovers. The way Wilson sees it though, he would be missing out on reps if he didn’t attempt these types of throws.
Love this answer by Zach Wilsonpic.twitter.com/W9Jwtw4jQP
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) August 11, 2021
Wilson has also been making a lot of great plays in practice as well. It seems as if he has his good days and his bad days. But when he has his good days, they seem to outweigh the not-so-good. A lot of Jets fans are excited because of the throws they see him make in practice.
In the long scheme of things, the throws Wilson is making in practice are just that: practice throws.
Another thing to note is that coach Robert Saleh has been throwing a lot of crazy defensive scheme at Wilson during training camp. Wilson seems to have learned a lot from this and seems to have taken what he has learned into his first preseason game.
ZW In Preseason Week 1
Wilson went 6 for 9 with 63 passing yards with an 86.8 QB rating on Saturday night vs. the Giants in the Jets’ first preseason game. He looked pretty calm and collected in his first real game in the limelight.
There were a couple of plays that really stood out. Wilson was rolling out of the pocket and zipping balls into tight windows to Corey Davis and Keelan Cole. He also stepped into defensive pressure, shifting his weight forwards instead of backwards, to deliver a nice ball to Tyler Kroft.
.@nyjets #ZachWilson and these 3 throws should get all #JETS fans excited. Talent. Arm strength. Accuracy all on display. Solid building block. #BaldysBreakdowns pic.twitter.com/wrBjgw04dW
— Brian Baldinger (@BaldyNFL) August 15, 2021
Unfortunately this doesn’t really mean much, considering the Giants were not starting most of their defense. Nonetheless, Wilson proved he is capable of making respectable throws at an NFL level.
Is It Time For The Hype?
I would take his performances in practice and in preseason as a positive start to what we hope to see from Wilson in the future. He and Elijah Moore can really be a force in the years to come. That being said, he still has much more to prove, especially when he starts to see real pressure from real starting defenses.
I’m going to remain very neutral on ZW until he wins more than 4 games for the Jets this upcoming season.
-Tom D (@ThomasDiRusso on Twitter)
Feat. image courtesy of Dennis Schneidler / USA TODAY Sports
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