Zach Wilson takes another step back in Jets' loss

Zach Wilson’s day could easily be summarized by the final play of the Jets’ 30-9 loss to the Saints — a scramble as time was expiring that ended with him splayed on the field, a yard short of what would have been a meaningless touchdown.

It was too little, too late, and ultimately the perfect mix of frustrating and fruitless. But there was plenty of that to go around Sunday, when the Jets didn’t score a touchdown, made pivotal miscues in the first half and essentially handed the keys over to the Saints’ offense.

And though Robert Saleh called it "not [Wilson’s] cleanest game, obviously," it was a little more than that.

Sure, Wilson wasn’t helped by Ty Johnson’s three first-quarter drops, but his effort also was plagued by inaccuracy and small mistakes that quickly ballooned into large ones. At times, he struggled with the little things — a throw in the flat to Ryan Griffin or a bubble screen to Braxton Berrios, both of which went for first-half incompletions.

The final tally was an ugly one: 19-for-42 for 202 yards, with three sacks and a 59.8 passer rating.

"As far as seeing the field, decision-making, I thought I was seeing it well," Wilson said. "Of course, there are some I want back. I’ve got to throw the ball better, give the guys a better chance to run after the catch . . . I think part of it is really just trusting what I see. Throwing has always been, I feel, my strong suit my entire life. Throwing the ball has always been easy, so I need to make it easy. I need to trust what I’m seeing . . . not overthink the throw or try to make it too difficult or whatever."

In addition to not setting his feet on the first-quarter incompletion to Griffin, Wilson said he rushed the throw. The play to Berrios was a product of not setting his hand on the laces properly. The ball slipped, he said. But though it might be easy to write off Wilson as another failed Jets quarterback experiment, it’s clear that Saleh is nowhere near that thinking.

"He was hindered with some drops early," Saleh said. "I don’t know if that threw him off or not, but obviously, he’s played better in the past and he’ll be better for the next one . . . He had a couple that got away but he also had a couple where we didn’t help him, just making plays, so obviously, it’s something that he’s got to improve on."

Wilson was playing without some of his biggest targets in Elijah Moore (quadriceps) and Corey Davis (groin), along with running back Michael Carter. He said that didn’t affect the Jets' production.

By now, most Jets fans expected (or at least hoped) that Wilson would be over some of his rookie growing pains. That’s clearly not the case.

"Some of the routes we’re doing, I didn’t do a lot in college," he said. "It’s not an excuse. I’ve got to get better to get those guys a nice, accurate ball. That’s something I’ve been working on, so it’s frustrating when I didn’t hit on some of those.

Wilson insisted that the failures aren’t getting into his head.

"I’m a rookie," he said. "I just got here. I never once told myself that it was going to be easy when I got here. I never look at it as being down on myself, like, this is how my career is going . . . Yeah, it hurts sometimes, but it’s all part of the process."

It is, but the hope was that the process would be a little further along by now.

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.