New York City has a population of nearly nine million, but it’s debatable whether any among that number would be willing to defend Zach Wilson or the team’s hierarchy. On Monday Joe Namath, the only quarterback to win a Super Bowl with the team, became the latest person to go on the attack after the Jets announced they are sticking with Wilson, who was once the future of the franchise but is now the most popular target of frustrated fans. “I wouldn’t keep him,” said Namath during an interview on The Michael Kay Show on 98.7 ESPN New York.
Blake Bortles was way better than Brissett or anyone available. They don’t even have a path to the playoffs with any backup they could acquire. The league’s depth at QB is terrible.
Wilson was a better QB than Josh Allen was, on a play to play basis. Any day Josh Allen plays like that, the Bills will lose to anyone. Their defense is good, but none of Allen’s stupidity was forced.
The schedule is way too hard to be a playoff team with a backup-ceiling QB. There were no plays Sunday a disciplined but lower talent QB makes that Wilson didn’t. Wilson’s arm talent was their entire offensive production.
I couldn’t disagree more. I’m a UCF fan, I’m very aware of Bortles abilities. He is absolutely not as good as Brissett, there’s a reason he retired while still relatively young for a QB. There’s a reason he was behind Trevor Siemian on the QB depth chart in Denver.
The only part about Wilson that was better than Allen in that game was he threw less turnovers. Allen’s stats were better in pretty much every other way (and that’s with him throwing the ball nearly twice as much because they couldn’t run the ball against the Jets D). And two of the INTs were unforced but one wasn’t, and there’s also the fact that Allen felt the need to play hero ball for a reason, they couldn’t get anything going on the ground and they weren’t moving the ball much in short plays either. To the point that Diggs was getting visibly frustrated (which partially led to one of the unforced turnovers because Allen tried to force him the ball). But I agree, the Jets were kind of gifted that win, but that’s also with the Bills stacking the box because the didn’t fear Wilson in the air (and he didn’t prove them wrong).
I think you’re thinking about this wrong. I don’t think if you run the same plays with a different QB that you’d get better results. I’m saying if you have someone that can be a game manager and set the protections correctly and get 4 to 5 yard passes when you need to, defenses can’t just key in on the run and then Breece Hall and Dalvin Cook will be able to get some runs without being contacted in the back field every play. But Wilson can’t do that, he overthrows screens and he makes terrible decisions that put the ball in danger for now reason. It’s like having Jameis Winston without the occasional explosive play.
Guys aren’t just one level. Bortles played great football to lead the Jags to competency. When he stopped being competent, so did the team. He was far better than Jacoby has ever been, let alone now, when the Jaguars were a fringe contender.
All three of Allen’s throws, and numerous other decisions to throw his body around and just generously be ten steps beyond reckless, were terrible. They weren’t even sort of caused by anything the Jets did. He just randomly melts down a couple games a year.
Nobody is stacking the box less with any backup QB in the league. Jacoby doesn’t get you into plays that magically beat a stacked box. He doesn’t magically make the worst line in the division capable of creating run lanes or pass protecting. He doesn’t give you a play caller who knows what a NFL offense is. They’re still a bottom 5 offense with Brissett. At least Wilson has the arm to force some balls to their only needle moving receiver.
Wilson isn’t a good QB. But current Brissett is every bit as bad.
I guess we’ll have to just agree to disagree. Ultimately I don’t think they have a great chance either way, but I think that chance is 0 with Wilson whereas a slightly more unknown quantity (as in, we haven’t seen them on this exact team) at least is something different. If it turns out to also be 0, you really didn’t lose all that much. It just seems 100% worth the risk to me with a team this good. Literally everything but the QB and the OL to a certain extent is excellent.
As a Pats fan I love Brisket. He had a nice run here back during the Brady suspension/Jimmy G injury thing.
I’d be happy to see Brisket get playing time (even if it is with the Jets), but I don’t think he makes the Jets a Super Bowl contender.
You’re entirely right, the NFL has terrible QB depth right now. I think it’s in part that there is this class of QBs that took or are taking forever to retire (e.g., Brady) and they pushed out young talent over the years. I think we’re in store for a period of more turnover in QB, and I hope it means greater depth.
I liked him better than Jimmy. He’s just not good enough to carry a couple of skill guys to an average offense, and you need that to win with an elite defense today.
I think it’s the increasing trend to athleticism at QB. It raises the floor in college, and to an extent in the pros, but at some point you’re going to have to make a read and make a throw, and with the talent disparity in college you never really have to do that if you can use your legs. But you can’t just run around DEs in the NFL as easily as you can in college, especially if you can’t punish them for overplaying your legs by recognizing it and attacking the holes.
I think it’s what makes finding a franchise QB so hard. It’s not easy to evaluate if someone can make that jump. It’s like with Mac: you would think the clear path from Saban to Belechick would be a good sign for his development. But he’s struggled mightily, and I don’t see it getting better.
If you watch the film he’s been playing well this year. He’s making the right reads and good throws. The result hasn’t been huge production, but they’ve stayed incredibly conservative between the weather, the defenses they’ve played, and the inability to get a consistent group on the line. They’ve also had too many balls dropped. Stevenson is a great back and a good receiver, but he was the right decision and Mac hit him in stride twice on third downs early on Sunday, and he dropped them. Week one, Boutte had two drive killing rookie plays on the sideline, and Mac made a crazy throw over the middle under pressure to Bourne that he dropped.
Everything is right there. It’s the third offensive overhaul in three years with entirely different coaching staffs, and it’s still sloppy, but they’re above average in terms of yards and have played two very good defenses. BoB is feeling out who he can trust, and he’s doing it while clearly not having faith in the line, with the right side being guys who didn’t get on the practice field until the week before the season and the left side being guys in and out. If they can keep this 5 for a month, I think they can get them on the same page and be fine. Fine is enough for everything else to flow. The problems are self inflicted, but even premium assets aren’t guaranteed to fix it with how thin it is across the league. I sure as hell wouldn’t give up Gonzalez for Broderick Jones right now.