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.
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.