Under the Thursday night lights at MetLife Stadium, Jets fans will see up close and personal what a young developing franchise quarterback looks like. Unfortunately, Trevor Lawrence will throw passes for the visiting Jaguars.
Zack Wilson? He’ll likely do it again for the home team unless the Jets and/or Mike White find a medical professional who thinks it’s a good idea to expose the man’s battered ribcage to naked brutality Match.
Maybe Wilson will turn it on against Jacksonville and start a sudden streak of prosperity that will carry over into next season and beyond. Maybe the No. 2 overall picks in the 2021 draft will begin his rise to stardom by edging out No. 1. 1 overall pick in the 2021 draft – Hey, Wilson beat Lawrence last year with his legs – and finally took advantage of the last laugh at the expense of enemies about to reject him as a bust.
Funny things happen in professional football, and Wilson overcoming his struggles and honoring his advertised potential would certainly be a hoot.
But the evidence continues to cut against that possibility. Lawrence, for example, looks completely like an NFL franchise player, and not just because at 6-foot-6, he’s 4 inches taller than Wilson. On Sunday, Lawrence threw for four touchdowns and 318 yards as well The Jaguars have upset the Cowboys, 40-34, over time.
In his last three wins — against Dallas, Tennessee and Baltimore — Lawrence has thrown for 1,007 yards, 10 touchdowns and one interception. He’s shown massive improvement since last year and he’s made 31 of a possible 31 starts.
Wilson has shown virtually no improvement since his rookie season and has missed 10 career starts due to injuries and poor performance.
It’s not supposed to rain on Wilson’s return to the field on Sunday after three weeks of watching White play his role at a senior level. In flash during a crushing 20-17 loss to the LionsWilson showed everyone what Jets general manager Joe Douglas saw when he decided the BYU quarterback could be the one to finally lift the franchise to its first championship since January 1969.
He rolled to his left in the second quarter and shot deep to his right – a tribute to his famous Pro Day uprising that upended the sport of offseason talent hunting – to find CJ Uzomah for a 40-yard score. He rolled to his right in the closing seconds of the game, showed particular athleticism to evade the rush, and threw to his left to find Elijah Moore for the 20 yards needed for a last-second crack in overtime.
Alas, Greg Zuerlein missed the 58-yarder that could have drastically changed the narrative of the day for Wilson and all of his teammates determined to make the Jets’ first playoff appearance since 2010. “Obviously,” said cornerback DJ Reed, “everyone is devastated.”
Wilson surely felt it more than most. If Zuerlein had succeeded in the field goal attempt, the quarterback could have played the hero in overtime. Heck, if the Jets’ esteemed defense had made a fourth and a save after the two-minute warning rather than giving up a 51-yard touchdown on an undrafted tight end, Wilson’s second pass just minutes earlier would be . »
“I have to be a better man,” Wilson conceded afterwards.
He missed too many relatively easy passes and threw a brutal interception in a brutal third quarter, giving Detroit a field goal.
“And you see how those three points come back to bite us at the end,” Wilson said.
Fans occasionally booed him, and Garrett Wilson again showed his frustration when Zach Wilson missed him in the middle. But the young receiver and the young quarterback kissed later on the sidelines.
“That boy fought hard,” Garrett Wilson said. And any time you walk into a game and see the speed of the game and you get men’s coverage and you haven’t been in that position for three weeks, it’s going to be tough on you. And I thought he was doing really well, man. He showed a lot of persistence, especially late in the game, making some of the throws he did and staying there, and gave us a chance to win the game. And that’s all you can ask for.
Jets head coach Robert Saleh didn’t commit to Wilson for the Jacksonville game and didn’t seem thrilled with the overall performance, saying Wilson “played well” but suggested he had still need technical adjustments after all this fundamental work. The truth is Saleh could have helped Wilson with his time management on that last rideand running backs and the line could have helped him with anything better than 50 yards on 22 carries.
More than anything, Wilson needs to help himself.
“I have a lot of games that I want to recover,” he said, “and so until I can correct them and make the easier ones, I have to keep learning and trying to improve. ”
Maybe Zach Wilson will improve enough to become a rising franchise player like Thursday night opponent Trevor Lawrence. But right now, the odds are stacked against him.
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