With about two minutes left in the third quarter of Sunday’s 23-6 loss to the Buffalo Bills, NYJ head coach Robert Saleh benched Zach Wilson, his unproductive QB. Journeyman Tim Boyle played the rest of the game. On Monday, Saleh announced that Boyle would start Friday’s game vs. Miami. The Wilson Era is (thankfully) over in New York.
Benching Zach Wilson might be an act of mercy. Sure, he was an incompetent performer, but he was also getting beaten up badly; it would have been cruel to keep playing him. Either way, the move was long overdue, and it should have happened after the Jets’ 16-12 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders when Wilson failed to throw a touchdown pass and cost his team a chance to win by throwing a late TD.
Either Boyle or Trevor Siemian was certain to take over eventually, and the Jets owed as much to its players and fans.
Wilson, the #2 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, played 32 games in his career and had enough chance to show what he could do. He simply failed to get it done by holding the ball too long, getting sacked, struggling to convert third downs, and turning over the ball. Wilson was 11-20 as a starter, with 21 touchdowns and 25 interceptions, and he went 31 straight possessions without throwing a touchdown. The Jets couldn’t keep running out a struggling quarterback without chancing a locker room revolt.
The Jets should have traded him and gotten something decent in return. The thinking was that Wilson would learn from Aaron Rodgers, but it didn’t turn out that way.
“The Fall” captured by Larry Brown Sports
Was it poetic justice on Sunday when Wilson fell while running off the field after being replaced? Even if it wasn’t, I predict the Jets will release Zack Wilson during the offseason. Traded or released, the bottom line is that the Zach Wilson experiment is over in New York, and I do not know what to say about his NFL future.
Honestly, I don’t think he is an NFL quarterback. He’s not intelligent enough to play that position, even though (like many other QBs) he has the arm to play. That said, Wilson seems destined to fall in the category of underachieving high-draft NFL QB picks, of the likes of Jeff George and Ryan Leaf.
Even if that’s a bit harsh, there’s no doubt Zach Wilson will be remembered as a bust and one of NYJ’s worst draft picks and starting quarterbacks.
