He can’t recover from this. This was bad. This was, in truth, the worst. It’s one thing to lose your job to Mike White. It’s one thing to have fans chant Joe Flacco’s name. It’s something else to be left on the sideline when Chris Streveler — No. 4 on the depth chart, for those keeping score — trots into the game.
And when a salty, soaked gathering at MetLife Stadium finally stops booing, and begins to cheer the exhibition-season folk hero.
Yes. Zach Wilson is done here.
Was this disgrace of a 19-3 loss to the Jaguars Thursday night entirely his fault?
Of course not. The Jets’ self-appointed monster defense was picked apart by Trevor Lawrence, and it was only the miserable weather conditions that kept the score so modest. The running game, again, was nonexistent. The Jets, as a whole, looked woefully unready to play a game with their season on the line.
All true. All fair.
But one more time, Zach Wilson looked like a Pop Warner quarterback who’d somehow found his way onto an NFL field. His numbers were ghastly across 2 ½ quarters — 9-for-18, 92 yards, a 41.9 quarterback rating three first downs — yes, three.
But even the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Wilson looks utterly perplexed whenever he drops back to pass. He always holds the ball a beat too long. For a quarterback who was supposed to be able to use his legs as at least an occasional weapon, he almost never seeks to do any damage that way.
It’s not just that he’s bad at his job.
He’s noncompetitive. And that’s the part that’s hard to accept and harder still to understand.
You can talk all you want about an offensive line that is banged up and often looked like a sieve Thursday night. You can rail about how embattled offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur has done little to help develop Wilson, how his game plans do little to disguise his weaknesses. Those are fair arguments.
But this was the second pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, and on a night when he faced off against the man who went a spot above him he looked like a guy who should be called Mr. Irrelevant. Except he isn’t. It is exceedingly relevant that he has been such an abject bust. You can’t miss this badly. But it sure looks like the Jets missed this badly.
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You know who would have figured out a way to keep the ball moving for the Jets Thursday? Mike White sure would have. You know who did find a way to get the ball moving for the Jets? Streveler, wearing Tim Tebow’s old No. 15. He never quite found the end zone either, but at least he competed.
That is a low bar. But Wilson can’t even reach that.
This is a brutal predicament for the Jets. Brutal. They really have made strides this year, really did build a solid defense, really did see many of their young players blossom. They’ve won seven games. They’ve hung with some very good teams in their losses. But having a quarterback this ineffective sucks the life out of a team.
And the Jets, Thursday, played like a team with every ounce of life sucked out if it.
Even the game’s highlight — an early strip-sack of Lawrence by Quinnen Williams — became an instant awful omen when the offense trotted onto the field and couldn’t do a thing with platinum-plated field position. The Jets were up 3-0 and already looked like a team that was down two touchdowns.
Yes, you can cite a roster of quarterbacks who started poorly and figured it out. Everyone always looks at Terry Bradshaw’s first few years, at Peyton Manning’s rookie year. Aaron Rodgers threw 59 passes in his first three years in the league.
But even in their early failures, you could see something there.
This is hard to say — and harder to type — but all you see when you watch Zach Wilson is JaMarcus Russell or Ryan Leaf — the most epic NFL quarterback busts in recent memory.
Now he can’t keep Chris Streveler off the field.
It’s over.
