It’s well-documented that New England coach Bill Belichick does a great job on rookie quarterbacks.
Last year, his defense shutout the Los Angeles Chargers’ Justin Herbert, 45-0. Herbert had an excellent rookie season, but even he was baffled.
And remember when former Jets QB Sam Darnold, in 2019, threw four picks against New England, to go with a 3.7 quarterback rating, in a 33-0 Patriots win. Granted Darnold wasn’t a rookie at the time, but he was still young and inexperienced, and was stumped by Belichick’s defense.
Darnold said he was “seeing ghosts” that day. In other words, Belichicks complex coverages were messing with his mind. Belichick is known for creating great coverage disguises.
But with Zach Wilson’s four-pick performance on Sunday, you could argue that none of the four interceptions were “seeing ghosts” picks. One interception was a thrown a little high to wide receiver Corey Davis on a bootleg right, went off his hands, and was intercepted. The other three seemed to have some “hero ball” elements to them – ill-advised throws down field that were forced
However, none of the picks seemed to derive from tricky Patriots coverages baffling Wilson.
So the argument that Wilson was “seeing ghosts” was probably not the issue that led to the four picks.
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