It appears that the Zach Wilson experiment with the New York Jets has officially come to a close.
After the Jets lost to the Buffalo Bills 32 to 6, and failed to score a touchdown once again this season, the upper management finally did what fans (and those who have been forced to watch New York in primetime) have been clamoring for and benched QB Zach Wilson.
Wilson was really expected to be the backup to quarterback for Aaron Rodgers, but that perfect dream world went flying out the window four snaps into the Jets season when Rodgers tore his achilles.
I’ll always be confused why teams suddenly move their number one quarterback one the depth chart all the way to number three, effectively saying they are done from here on out (barring some other catastrophic injury). However, it’s been clear from the get-go that Wilson was not the guy for the Jets.
And though the struggles of “Gang Green” aren’t all his fault, the media hasn’t made it seem that way. The only person in the media that’s been speaking positively about Wilson is Aaron Rodgers on his weekly stop in with ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show.
McAfee asked Rodgers how he felt about Zach Wilson’s benching, and Aaron continued to give the young quarterback praise while also calling out some others on the team:
“We need a spark. I feel for Zach, I love Zach. Zach’s such a great kid, and I do think he still has a bright future in the league. This has been a tough go for all of us. A lot of times in these situations, there’s certain guys they have to scapegoat.
I think there’s enough blame to go around in a number of different positions. If you have 10 guys doing it right on a play and one guy not, it’s hard to be efficient.”
Then the discussion went on to be about whether Wilson could ever have a successful NFL career, and Rodgers continued to stay positive about Zach, but couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible for how this year has gone for the young QB:
“You never know what could happen. This was obviously not the way that any of us thought this was going to go down. It was going to be me and my show and Zach getting to learn and watch it first hand and not have the pressure to go out there and play.
Obviously, this is disappointing. I have some personal guilt around the whole thing. I mean, I’m pissed that I wasn’t able to play and frustrated that if I was out there and I feel like I would be playing well, there would be different narratives around our team and Zach would have the opportunity to learn and grow and see what it looks like.”
The New York Jets debut their “new” QB this Friday when Gang Green takes on the Miami Dolphins in the NFL’s first ever Black Friday Game.
This might be the only time I encourage others to go Black Friday shopping, only so you don’t have to watch the Jets struggle to score a touchdown yet again…
