Zach Wilson is killing yet another Jets season
Zach Wilson is killing yet another Jets season
The Jets get blown out by the Chargers in embarrassing fashion on Monday night. Plus, how the quarterback is ruining another season.
What’s Up with the Jets? 🛩️
The Jets were embarrassed by the Chargers by a 27-6 score on Monday night (box)
New York has scored just 19 points on offense over their last two games and has only scored eight offensive touchdowns all season long over eight games
QB Zach Wilson was worse than the box score will tell you, going 33/49 (67.3 percent) for 263 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions and two lost fumbles
The Jets were flagged for eight penalties in last night’s loss after being called for nine in their previous game
WR Garrett Wilson hauled in seven catches for 80 yards on the night, but did lose a fumble
RB Breece Hall carried the ball 16 times for 50 yards and had four catches for 10 yards on the night
WR Allen Lazard had two drops on the night and was called for three penalties – he made just two catches for a total of 18 yards
The Jets defense played a lot better than the stats would indicate, holding QB Justin Herbert to 16/30 passing for 136 yards and no touchdowns
Game Balls 🏈
OFFENSE
🏈 No One: This has to be at least the third time we’ve done this already this season, but we’re not giving anyone on offense the game ball yet again. Garrett Wilson was the only one that showed any semblance of a pulse, but even he lost a pretty crucial fumble early in this game. Zach Wilson was awful (don’t get fooled by that box score), the offensive line was bad, and Allen Lazard looks absolutely useless. Six points against the 31st-ranked passing defense in the league is beyond pathetic.
DEFENSE
🏈 Jermaine Johnson: The entire defense played well, but the second-year ascension by edge rusher Jermaine Johnson continues to be a major factor for this unit. After recording two sacks last week, Johnson racked up another one vs the Chargers on Monday night and was in the backfield often pressuring Justin Herbert. Between Johnson, Garrett Wilson and Sauce Gardner, the first round of the 2022 Draft is looking that much more incredible for this team.
Play of the Week 📺
This is a first for us, but last night’s performance was so absurdly pathetic that we are foregoing a play of the week. Lets be real – there were none to speak of.
Zach Wilson isn’t any better, and he’s killing the Jets once again ✍️
We can’t keep doing this.
Offense is not supposed to be this hard in the league. This is a sport that just saw Josh Dobbs, a journeyman quarterback who was traded mid-week and had zero reps with the team and barely even knew who his teammates were, put up a winning performance vs one of the top passing defenses in the league. Aidan O'Connell just tore up the same Giants defense that stifled the Jets a week ago. Even Bears back-up quarterback Tyson Bagent put up a respectable performance in a loss vs the Saints on Sunday.
So how come the Jets are one of the only teams that still looks like they’re playing out in the mud in the 1940s?
We’re in Week 9 and the Jets have only scored eight offensive touchdowns all season and are averaging 14.4 points per game on offense. And yes, there are a lot of reasons that contribute to this – the offensive line shuffling, a weak receiving core outside of Garrett Wilson and a poor play-caller in Nathaniel Hackett – but the buck stops with the quarterback. And he has not been remotely good enough.
I have had enough of the narrative that Zach Wilson has gotten better this season – he simply hasn’t. In nine games last season, Wilson had a 72.8 passer rating and 54.5 completion percentage with six touchdowns and eight turnovers. In eight games this season, Wilson has a 74.3 passer rating and a 59.9 completion percentage with five touchdowns and 10 turnovers.
The offense is averaging less points per game than they did a season ago with less weapons and a less experienced offensive coordinator that they wound up firing, and this quarterback has become so afraid to throw the ball that he holds onto it for an eternity. And with his absurd lack of pocket presence and ability to sense pressure, the sacks and fumbles have replaced those interceptions and have skyrocketed accordingly. Over the last two games alone, Wilson has fumbled four times and lost all of them, leading to 17 points for Jets opponents.
He is missing throws – there were two to C.J. Uzomah that were egregious and one to Garrett Wilson that could have been an 80+ yard catch-and-run – routinely, is either too afraid or not allowed to throw the ball down the field, and is defaulting to zero-to-one-yard checkdowns because he’s too scared to use his legs or take a chance.
Zach Wilson is not better, he just stinks in a different font.
And for this front office and coaching staff to allow this same quarterback to destroy a promising season for them yet again is nothing short of organizational malpractice.
They should have signed a real back-up quarterback over the offseason – they didn’t. They should have brought one in during training camp or the preseason – they didn’t. They should have brought one in after Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles – they didn’t. And they should have brought one in before the trade deadline – they didn’t.
It has now been 58 days since Rodgers went down with a devastating injury, and they still have never brought in a single legitimate back-up quarterback option. How is that possible?
How is Trevor Siemian, who after a month-and-a-half still can’t even get off of the practice squad, the only quarterback this regime brought in? And if Tim Boyle is so bad that he isn’t even a viable option to come in and relieve Wilson in one of his many subpar performances, why is he even on this team let alone any NFL team?
Yet again, Joe Douglas and this front office’s inability to admit that they blew it with the No. 2 overall pick in the draft three years ago is absolutely destroying them. What’s truly ridiculous is that the Jets had already admitted this by replacing Wilson with Aaron Rodgers over the offseason, so no one would have faulted them by bringing in a suitable replacement once the injury took place. No one is forcing the Jets to do this, and yet they are so deep in their own sunk-cost fallacy that they can’t even see which way is up.
What’s even more frustrating is that it is so clear how little this coaching staff trusts Wilson, as they refuse to do anything that even resembles creativity on offense or let him throw the ball deep down the field. They are so scared of him making a mistake, and at this point rightly so, that they are coaching him with kid gloves on. You saw that in the Patriots game, you saw that vs the Giants in the rain, and you saw that again last night. They all know what Wilson is, and yet they have still refused to make a change.
Why couldn’t they have been the team to give up a 6th round pick for Josh Dobbs? Why didn’t they give up a day-three pick for Jacoby Brissett, who was reportedly available in a trade? It doesn’t make any sense at this point.
This team has a championship caliber defense that is being absolutely wasted away week-after-week, and just had the entire AFC East lose on Sunday in what would have been a huge opportunity to gain major ground. And while this team is 4-4 and still in the hunt, they have now blown several games they had no business losing. This one, in particular, is a particularly huge blow to the team in a packed AFC as they will now lose the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Chargers if they factor into the playoff picture down the road.
Watching this offense throughout this season, especially after being teased with the promise of a Hall of Fame quarterback, has been unbelievably frustrating and just plain cruel. The story is the exact same every week, and yet we go into these games expecting, or just hoping, that maybe the offense won’t look like it’s JV high school vs the ‘85 Bears. But the story never changes.
And while the team was able to pull off back-to-back miracle wins over the Eagles and Giants over the previous two weeks, that is a really tough way to live. Both times, the Jets trailed and didn’t have possession of the football with under two minutes to go and somehow managed to pull out a pair of incredible wins. But you can’t always count on those massive, game-changing plays (and mistakes by the opponents) in the final minute of games. The Jets made the plays they had to but there’s also a lot of luck involved there, and luck runs out.
In each of those games, the Jets offense put them in a position to lose despite unbelievable performances by this defense. Against the Eagles, the offense had only put up 12 points through 58 minutes with no touchdowns. Against the Giants, they’d only scored seven points through 59-and-a-half minutes despite the defense holding the other team to negative nine passing yards. And now last night, just six points against one of the worst defenses in all of football, and with an extra day to prepare.
If things keep going this way, the Jets will face a similar fate as they did one season ago – a long losing streak late in the season that extends the postseason drought by yet another year. They find themselves with their season on the brink, and Aaron Rodgers’ seemingly impossible early return from an Achilles tear will only matter if this team is still alive in the playoff hunt in December.
But with the way the Jets have handled this throughout the entire year, there’s no reason to believe anything will change. And that is a damn shame.
Next Week’s Game 🗓
Match-up: Jets (4-4) at Raiders (4-5)
Where: Allegiant Stadium – Las Vegas, NV
When: 8:20 PM EST
Where to Watch: NBC
Around the NFL 🏁
The Bengals won their fourth consecutive game after outlasting the Bills by a 24-18 score on Sunday night
Texans QB CJ Stroud passed for 470 yards with five touchdowns in the club’s comeback victory over the Buccaneers
The Eagles staved off a last-minute comeback attempt by the Cowboys, holding off Dallas by a 28-23 score to improve to 8-1 on the season
Vikings QB Josh Dobbs, who was traded to the team on Tuesday, came in off the bench and recorded three touchdowns in the team’s 31-28 win over the Falcons
The Ravens stomped the Seahawks by a decisive 37-3 score to improve to 7-2