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From a philosophical standpoint, I don’t totally understand it.
The Jets decided to hit the reset button with Zach Wilson to fix his mechanics after his 77-yard passing game in the Jets 10-3 in New England. He was inactive the last three games, with Joe Flacco serving as the backup to Mike White.
Now, three weeks later, they are making Wilson the active #2 for the Lions-Jets game on Sunday.
Fixing mechanical issues, like throwing off your back foot, and re-training eyes, often takes a lot longer than three weeks.
So if Wilson has to play on Sunday, if White gets hurts, and remember White will enter the game with a rib injury, will he be any better than what we saw in New England?
Basically what I’m saying is, if you are looking to re-work his throwing mechanics to help him long-term, is it ideal to put him back out there before you can truly fix the problems?
This would be like sending a baseball pitcher down the minors to fix his throwing mechanics, and then calling him back up, pretty quickly, before the mechanics are truly fixed.
If Wilson has fixed his mechanics in three weeks, it would have to be considered a minor miracle. It’s hard to change bad habits, rooted in a player’s muscle memory, in such a short period of time.
People might say, they don’t have a choice after the way Joe Flacco played on Sunday.
“It looked like he didn’t want to be out there,” one fan tweeted.
It’s hard to go there, but, it’s clearly the end of the line for Flacco, a player, you could argue, Joe Douglas got too close to, so the GM could not see the forest for the trees when evaluating, which is surprising, because Douglas has made SO many good moves running the team’s football operation.
They have another option – Chris Streveler, who did get into some games with Arizona in 2020-21. He had a very good preseason for the Jets in 2022. We saw in the preseason that this guy is the epitome of a gamer.
So if Flacco is finished, and Wilson mechanics reboot is far from being complete, why not make Streveler to backup to White?
Maybe there are PR and contract (Wilson makes a lot more than Streveler) elements to this. How would the media and fans react if made Streveler, and not Wilson the backup to White? It would cause a stir, but who cares? But teams do. We all know that . . .
Jets defensive tackle Jonathan Marshall, a Jets sixth-round pick in 2021 from Arkansas, was signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Marshall was on the Jets’ practice squad, so he was free to sign with another team’s regular roster.
This isn’t a big loss for the Jets. Marshall is fairly athletic for his size, but to use an old scouting expression – “He leaves you wanting more.”
Maybe he can take the next step with Pittsburgh . . .
One of Mike White’s strengths is also getting him in trouble, his ability and courage to keep his eyes downfield, regardless of the pass rush around him, and has led to some huge completions, with pass rushers barrelling down on him, but also some huge hits.
That is what the effective NFL QBs do – keep their eyes downfield. One big problem for Wilson, before his benching, was a low eye level that focused too much on the pass rush.
But the problem for White, is that he’s so good at this, he’s taking some wicked hits. and he’s not a big guy, kind of on the slender side at 6-5, 225.
The good news for the Jets and White coming up is they are facing a couple of teams that don’t have great pass rushes – Detriot and Jacksonville and the Jets are at home. In the last two games, the Jets played in two of the loudest stadiums in the league (Minnesota and Buffal0), a pair of teams with good pass rushers. That is a rough combination – loud road stadium and a good pass rush. Your offensive line is often behind the eight ball communicating and when you are facing a good pass rush, that creates a double whammy.
December 14, 2022
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