Jets benching QB Zach Wilson; to start Mike White versus Bears

[SodeeWater_Cheezburger]

7 hours ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

It had to be done. Zach Wilson is just so bad.

I'd be holding him out until the playoffs.  You don't want to risk losing "playoff Flacco" to a needless regular season injury.  Then again, you have to make sure you make the playoffs first, so there's always that.

[GangGreen420]

51 minutes ago, Malik said:

None of those 20 games were good. It's not like he had 5 great starts and 15 terrible ones. There's been 0 good games

He’s had a good half, here and there. Never put together a complete game.

Some Jets fans set the bar so low that him simply being on the field throwing for 120 yards and no picks was “improvement” 

[jetjuice]

5 hours ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

And as much as you want to feel like Zach Wilson is better, he's just not statistically and I showed that. Yes, he can run, but he's not a dangerous runner and he hasn't ran for more than 26 yards in a single game. Yes, he can rollout, but he can't throw accurately on the move (or at all, really). So how exactly are those things bonuses?

So what exactly does he "open up", especially when he's averaging 27 passing attempts/game while Flacco was averaging 50 (LOL)? Seems like the Jets were opening up the offense with Flacco and deliberately shutting it down under Wilson.

You're spot on my man, don't get worked up over this guy. He's been blindly defending Wilson in every thread about him across this forum and is giving us a bad rep in NFL Gen. He does not speak for most Jets fans and we all agree this was the right move. Flacco, White, whatever. White at least proved he can unlock Elijah Moore which is more than we can say about ZW. 

[NJerseypaint]

1 hour ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

3-and-outs implying that the Jets punted a ton under Flacco and not under Wilson.

Punts under Joe Flacco (3 games): 13 --> 4.3/game

Punts under Zach Wilson (7 games): 40 --> 5.7/game

 

Okay, so clearly they weren't punting more under Joe Flacco. Maybe they just weren't converting more 3rd downs under Joe Flacco?

3rd down conversions first 3 games: 17/47 --> 36%

3rd down conversions last 7 games: 28/92 --> 30%

 

Okay, so clearly they weren't punting more under Joe Flacco and they were converting more 3rd downs. Maybe Zach had more 1st downs and they just never got to 3rd down as much?!

1st downs first 3 games: 27/game

1st downs last 7 games: 17/game

 

Okay, so they weren't gaining more first downs under Wilson either, but maybe they were gaining more yards thus not needing to get more first downs!

Yards/game first 3 games: 370/game

Yards/game last 7 games: 272/game

 

These are heavily skewed by the last NE game. Removing the last NE game you much less of a difference between the two.

Zach new numbers:

• Punts: 30 -> 5/game
• Yards/game: 317/game

IDK where you get 3rd down (it's not on PFR in the game by game table), or how you got 1st downs (I tried using PFR, but my numbers for Flacco were 21, and Zach 17 without the NE game). And yes, I can read that Zach is still less than Joe here, but I'd expect that if both suck but Zach went against better defenses.

 

Other nice metrics:

• Pts/game: Flacco 17 / Zach 24
  • The defense contributes here, which also can explain why yards and first downs are negatively correlated with points here. You'll get more points and less yards when you consistently have better field position. Are we going to blame Zach for not having worse field position or Joe for not being able to overcome his?
• TO/game: Flacco 2 / Zach 1
  • Flacco might not be throwing picks but he gets sacked for fumbles at a way higher rate.
• Rush Yards (opening up the ground attack):  Flacco 84 / Zach 134
• Avg Expected Pts: Flacco -3.11 / Zach 0.83
  • Zach's offenses are better at scoring than the expected value (barely) while Flacco's offenses are worse.
  • Table: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nyj/2022.htm#games
  • Article/Ref: https://www.sports-reference.com/blog/2012/03/features-expected-points/

 

In a nutshell, they are both doo-doo. But Joe isn't a clear better option to Zach, even on paper. Without Zach putting up the worst game of the year last week and throwing 3 picks in his first NE game (like it's super clear BB has him in his bag), this isn't even a discussion because every other game he was "good enough". But Joe was terrible without facing a top 5 defense.

[NJerseypaint]

39 minutes ago, jetjuice said:

You're spot on my man, don't get worked up over this guy. He's been blindly defending Wilson in every thread about him across this forum and is giving us a bad rep in NFL Gen. He does not speak for most Jets fans and we all agree this was the right move. Flacco, White, whatever. White at least proved he can unlock Elijah Moore which is more than we can say about ZW. 

Defending Zach? Where? Show me where I say Zach is good? Because I'm not going full Stephen A Smith like everyone else?

I never liked Zach. I never wanted Zach. I legit foretold this outcome.

Hell, I was disappointed when we drafted him. I knew he was fools gold, but I hoped he could make his tools work because I was stuck with him.

 

But I'm not gonna act like Flacco is good because Zach is bad. The two are unrelated.

[TheKillerNacho]

21 minutes ago, NJerseypaint said:

 

But I'm not gonna act like Flacco is good because Zach is bad.

no one said Flacco was good tho

[Jakuvious]

9 hours ago, CP3MVP said:

Lol I don’t know why some people think 20 starts is some small number. Ryan leaf got 21 and Jamarcus got 25. Some times a guy just doesn’t have it. 
 

This idea that everyone needs 3 full years to see if they are the guy is laughable and certainly not based on NFL history 

Josh Allen has set fan analysis of young QBs back decades. It reinvigorated the old, desperate "Well, Peyton Manning threw INTs as a rookie" crowd of trying to convince themselves that bad young QBs can turn the corner. Everyone wants to compare their young QBs start to Josh Allen's now, as proof that they can definitely turn it around. When really, as has always been the case, most guys that suck continue to suck.

[NJerseypaint]

1 hour ago, TheKillerNacho said:

no one said Flacco was good tho

He’s also not better than Zach. Zach is not good. Joe is not good. Mike White is not good. In true Jets fashion we have 3 QBs who aren’t worth starting and now I’m debating with posters on who might be marginally better.

I’d be curious if any other Jet fans thinks we’d have a better record right now if we had started Joe all year long instead of Zach. My opinion is very much no.

[.Buzz]

1 hour ago, Jakuvious said:

Josh Allen has set fan analysis of young QBs back decades. It reinvigorated the old, desperate "Well, Peyton Manning threw INTs as a rookie" crowd of trying to convince themselves that bad young QBs can turn the corner. Everyone wants to compare their young QBs start to Josh Allen's now, as proof that they can definitely turn it around. When really, as has always been the case, most guys that suck continue to suck.

I mean that’s definitely true, but we’ve also seen QBs continue to develop and turn into fringe/potential long term guys like Tua, Hurts, and co. as well as of late.  Obviously not of the same magnitude as where Allen ended up and they still need to do it over a larger sample size but…

Think it’s fair to give these highly viewed QB prospects coming out 3ish years.

[Jakuvious]

36 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

I mean that’s definitely true, but we’ve also seen QBs continue to develop and turn into fringe/potential long term guys like Tua, Hurts, and co. as well as of late.  Obviously not of the same magnitude as where Allen ended up and they still need to do it over a larger sample size but…

Think it’s fair to give these highly viewed QB prospects coming out 3ish years.

Tua and Hurts were never close to as bad as Wilson. Tua and Hurts were 85ish to 90ish passer rating QBs through their first 20 starts, and guys we were asking if they were going to be capped out as Alex Smith or Derek Carr kind of mid-tier QBs, or if they could make the next step with more time and help. The question was never if those guys were absolute trash. Statistically, Zach Wilson is closer to Jamarcus Russell. He's not even as good as early Josh Allen. He's not even keeping up with like, Davis Mills and Drew Lock, statistically. And he's on a good football team right now, too. Like, we're not asking if Wilson is going to cap out as a decent game manager like Tua was the first year or two. We're hoping that Wilson can even rise to that level in the first place.

I'm open to the idea that maybe I'm missing some unicorn out there, but I genuinely don't know of anyone who has had this poor of a statistical start to their career, that has become a positive QB in the NFL. Like, best case scenario is...Alex Smith? I guess?

Zach Wilson is just a bad QB. Everyone has seen enough to know that. It's just a bad case of sunk cost fallacy to keep pushing the issue with him.

[iknowcool]

55 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

I mean that’s definitely true, but we’ve also seen QBs continue to develop and turn into fringe/potential long term guys like Tua, Hurts, and co. as well as of late.  Obviously not of the same magnitude as where Allen ended up and they still need to do it over a larger sample size but…

Think it’s fair to give these highly viewed QB prospects coming out 3ish years.

When did Hurts or Tua ever look like garbage?

[.Buzz]

3 minutes ago, iknowcool said:

When did Hurts or Tua ever look like garbage?

Never said they did. But both definitely looked “bad young QBs” and not many thought were long term options. 

[TheKillerNacho]

1 minute ago, .Buzz said:

Never said they did. But both definitely looked “bad young QBs” and not many thought were long term options. 

As a Dolphins fan, there was not a single point in Tua's career I would've labeled him "bad".

[.Buzz]

2 minutes ago, TheKillerNacho said:

As a Dolphins fan, there was not a single point in Tua's career I would've labeled him "bad".

To each their own. I think a fair share of people thought he was likely not a long term option which is really the whole point.
 

If he’s not that, we’re arguing between a low end starter to backup level QB. 

[TheKillerNacho]

12 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

To each their own. I think a fair share of people thought he was likely not a long term option which is really the whole point.
 

If he’s not that, we’re arguing between a low end starter to backup level QB. 

People have been biased against him since he was drafted for some reason - probably a mix of being a Alabama QB and both Burrow and Herbert finding unprecedented success right off the bat (while Tua wasn't made the starter until later in the year and was dealing with throwing to PS-level receivers his rookie year, and guarded by historically bad OLs in his first two). He had as good of a rookie year as you can expect really, improved the second year by a fair amount despite the OL being so abysmal that calling any sort of vertical pass was out of the question, and obviously broke out to playing at a top 5 level under McDaniel this year with those issues resolved.

Other than his durability, which is definitely a major concern, there was really no reason to be worried about him not developing into a good QB. For those who actually watched him play, anyway.