Much has been made of third-year QB Zach Wilson’s struggles over the first two seasons of his career with the New York Jets.
The second pick overall in the 2022 NFL Draft struggled mightily last season as the team’s starter in several areas, including the important facets of the position, such as command and accuracy, which were big reasons why Wilson was benched and the team ultimately traded for veteran QB Aaron Rogers.
Zach Wilson Developing Under Aaron Rodgers
However, Wilson has made solid strides in training camp so far in those areas, and his improvement was on display during last week’s win over the host Carolina Panthers.
A league source who watched Wilson’s tape from last week’s game pointed out a calmness to his game that had been rarely seen during his first two seasons of play. The source added he took what was in front of him and did not take what wasn’t there.
Wilson, the previous two seasons, tended to play too fast and lacked touch on shorter passes. In this game, though, he performed at a very high level against the Panthers’ defense, which had most of their starters (only OLB Brian Burns did not play) in the lineup for the first series, which lasted 13 plays.
Against Carolina, the third-year pro executed the short passing game well and was able to take something off those types of passes. Wilson, in the past, would often overthrow passes in the short area and would lack proper touch. Yet, in this game, he took what the defense gave him during his 40 snaps of play.
