Jets Q&A: How come the Jets move the football better when Zach Wilson isn't behind center?
A fan -- apparently not a Zach Wilson fan -- holds a banner in the fourth quarter Thursday night. Credit: Jim McIsaac
This is very concerning, and Robert Saleh couldn’t answer that question.
“Those are things we have to look at,” Saleh said. “I don’t have that answer. There’s a lot of stuff that we got to talk about.”
The Jets have invested so much time and resources into trying to develop Wilson, the No. 2 overall pick last year, into a franchise quarterback. He’s not that, and the Jets might not be able to wait for him.
Mike White definitely looks more comfortable playing the position and gets his playmakers more involved than Wilson does. Chris Streveler was able to provide a spark Thursday, but he did it mostly with his legs.
Wilson said it’s difficult to watch other quarterbacks do his job better than he does it.
“That’s why I got to look myself in the mirror,” he said. “You got to be hard on yourself and just say, 'Why are we not moving the ball?’ And that starts with me.''
He didn’t like it, but he understood why the fans were booing.
“You don’t blame them,” he said. “We have a very passionate fan base and they’re here to watch us score touchdowns. We’re not scoring touchdowns, we’re not getting first downs, we’re not moving the ball, we obviously can’t throw the ball. Of course they’re going to be frustrated.”
The practice-squad quarterback said he was told earlier in the day that the team would have a package of plays for him, most of it designed to run the ball in the anticipated poor weather.
“Whenever you dress, you have to expect to play,” he said. “My mindset is always just try to move the ball and score points one play at a time. Obviously, we didn’t do that. We moved the ball a little bit, but you gotta finish. Three points isn’t going to win games.”
After the first drive, he said. “We kind of went into a little more up-tempo mode and tried to get things going down two scores,'' he said. "We had to try to get down the field quick. A lot of that stuff was run-game stuff, so to move the ball quick, you have to do different stuff.”
“Once I went in, no one told me I was coming out,” he said. “No one ever took me out, so I just stayed in and kept trying to make positive plays.”
No. “I’m not thinking about that right now,'' he said. "It’s just disappointing to lose. It’s not about any of that.”
The Jets’ defense was dominated on the 16-play drive that resulted in the only touchdown of the game. On the Jaguars’ only third down of the series, Trevor Lawrence leaped and stretched the ball over the goal line on third-and-goal from the 1.
“We don’t allow things like that to happen, so to allow it to happen, it’s not up to our standards,” Sheldon Rankins said. “It’s a [expletive] feeling.”
Sauce Gardner said, “We couldn’t play complementary football. The way our fans see it, they see it just like [it’s] our quarterback situation, the offense. But defense, we take pride in everything.''
They said they need to correct their mistakes and play better against two teams that are fighting to reach the postseason -— Seattle and Miami —- and try to finish the season with back-to-back wins.
“Nobody said making a push towards playoffs was going to be simple,” Rankins said. “We obviously got to play better in all facets and be able to come away with games that we feel wholeheartedly that we should win. This was one of them. We got a couple more games ahead against some tough teams. We got to be ready to play our best [expletive] football.''
Quincy Williams arrived at the game in a Grinch costume and warmed up before the game in it. C.J. Uzomah was dressed as a pink rabbit when he showed up for the game, but he didn’t wear that on the field.
Al Iannazzone covers the Jets for Newsday after spending nearly two decades on the NBA beat with Knicks and Nets.
