Content available exclusively for subscribers
No question, the line could have been better.
However, going over the Jets-Buffalo game from Week 18, Zach Wilson also has a lot of work to do this offseason.
He needs to do a better job of seeing the field, and hitting hot reads to make the blitzing team pay.
The Bills repeatedly sent linebacker Matt Milano on blitzes, and Wilson didn’t make them pay for doing this. You have to make them pay or there not going to stop.
A team isn’t going to call off the dogs unless you show the ability to hit hot reads, sometimes for significant gains.
What Wilson too often does is dip his head and look at the rush. You need to keep your eyes up and look down field.
On a third-and-13 in the second quarter, the Bills actually only sent a four-man rush – Milano didn’t blitz. The initial offensive line protection wasn’t bad, but Wilson held the ball too long. But here is the most important fact to consider. Tight end Tyler Kroft was wide open on the short right side, Wilson never looked over there. and he was sacked, Even if it wouldn’t have gone for the first down, wouldn’t that have that been a better option than a sack?
In the middle of the third quarter, this happened again. On this play, Milano did blitz, and Ed Oliver ended up sacking Wilson, but it wasn’t immediate, and Kroft was wide open on the short right side again, and Wilson never looked over there, with his eyes glued to the left side.
Once again, I’m not saying it was an overall good day for the Jets’ offensive line. It wasn’t. Backup left tackle Conor McDermott had a rough day and is clearly a better fit on the right side.
However, there were also plenty of examples of the QB not seeing the field well and dipping his eyes looking at the rush, and these two plays where Kroft was wide open are cases-in-point.
He also had accuracy issues on other throws related to mechanics.
Big off-season for the kid. He has a lot of work to do. Some people repeatedly tell you it’s all about the line and the weapons, but any astute football observer knows it goes deeper than that . . .
When you sign veterans in free agency, even if they were leaders on their previous teams, they need to tread lightly during their first year with a new team. Ideally, the leaders on a team are entrenched players who have been there a while. I will never forget when safety Ronnie Lott came to the Jets in 1993, and was trying to be a leader, and Mo Lewis wasn’t interested, especially since Lott wasn’t playing that well.
And that brings me to J.J. Watt. It was a little surprising to read his comments after Arizona’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs.
“It was a massive failure, from what we were capable of doing, to what we showed we can do today,” Watt said. “There is no other way to describe it.”
Watt signed a big free-agent deal with Arizona last off-season but only played in seven regular-season games this year due to a shoulder injury. He came back for the playoff game, but clearly had little impact. So a guy who played eight games in his first season with a new team isn’t the person to be getting in front of the media and calling the game “a massive fail.” Leave that to the guys who have been there for a few years.
But this brings me to something a source told me. Somebody who used to coach Watt told this source of mine: “The only people who think J.J. Watt is a great leader aren’t in the locker room.”
In other words, this image might be a media creation.
January 18, 2022
Premium will return by 9:30 pm on Wednesday.
