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Peyton Manning was asked what he thought about Zach Wilson, who the Jets traded to Denver on Monday.
“The best way to really screw a young quarterback up is to change coordinators on him every single year, and it drives me crazy,” Manning told radio station 104.3 FM in Denver. “Look, I was very fortunate. I had an old-school coach named Tom Moore who was the coordinator the entire time I was there in Indianapolis.
“Tom Brady had different coordinators. Charlie Weis, Josh McDaniels, Bill O’Brien. But it was the same system, right? (Bill) Belichick said, hey, we’re running the same exact system. So it’s the same language, right? It’s the same verbiage. You rep each play against different coverages, and you just learn those plays with more reps.”
Well first of all, for this guy to criticize the Jets, takes a little gall. Remember, he called Christopher Johnson and lobbied hard for Adam Gase to get the Jets head coaching job in 2019, and might have helped Gase over the finish line.
Gase’s tenure didn’t work out that great with Gang Green and was fired after two years.
Manning might have been out of line for doing that. Gase might have been a good offensive coordinator for Manning in Denver, but he was not a great head coach in Miami. Manning, a very bright man, had to know what, but he perhaps let his close relationship with the coach cloud his judgment, or just chose to ignore that fact to help a friend get a job.
So no Jets fan probably wants to hear anything from this guy.
And there are also some holes in his argument.
Of course, it’s not ideal for a young QB to have to change systems, but Wilson was in the same system his first two years under Mike LaFleur, and part of the reason LaFleur was fired was Wilson not improving, which might not have been his fault, because he wasn’t any better under the next coordinator.
And after two substandard seasons in the same system for Wilson, not only did the Jets fire LaFleur, they traded for QB Aaron Rodgers.
So even though Wilson was forced to learn a new playbook in his third year, he wasn’t going to start, and was supposed to have plenty of time to get that system down and fix his mechanics.
But Rodgers got hurt in the opener, and Wilson was forced into action in the new system before his mechanics were totally fixed.
The mistake the Jets made was not having a veteran backup behind Rodgers, and letting Wilson sit in the #3 spot during his reboot.
Another hole in Manning’s argument: While it’s best to keep a young QB in the same system, there are myriad cases where young QBs were in the same system for a number of years and still didn’t work out.
You see, being comfortable in the system is great, but in many cases it doesn’t make the young QB read defenses and go through his progressions better.
Some guys won’t do that well in any system.
So many young quarterbacks turn out to still be one-read guys even with playbook comfort. Manning, who obviously knows more about quarterbacking than most, has to know that.
April 24, 2024
Premium will return by 11:30 pm on Thursday with analysis of Jets first round.
