Award Season + HOF Comes Calling 📳

Edition #326

Good morning!

With all the talk about Aaron Rodgers, Derek Carr, and Jimmy G, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Zach Wilson is still on the roster.

The reason the Jets are in the situation they are in relation to a veteran QB is simply that they missed on two top-5 Quarterbacks in the last 5 years. That’s it in a nutshell.

They drafted Darnold then forgot to support him, and he flamed out. They drafted Wilson and tried their best to support him, and they’re finally admitting mistakes were made.

Where does that leave the former #2 overall pick? The answer to that question is completely dependent on what the Jets do in terms of veteran addition.

🌟 The Hall of Fame announced their class of 2023 and there were a couple of Jets who made the cut. Both Darrelle Revis and Joe Klecko (finally) were inducted into the hall and both thoroughly deserve it. Congratulations to both, and here’s hoping we have plenty of hall of famers down the road.

🏆 It was a big night for the Jets as Sauce Gardner was named defensive rookie of the year and Garrett Wilson was named offensive rookie of the year. That’s only the third time in history that players from the same team won both awards, the last to do it was the New Orleans Saints with Marshon Lattimore and Alvin Kamara.

✖️ Sauce allowed just a 45.9% completion into his coverage, recorded 2 interceptions and 14 passes defended, and gave up just one touchdown on a miscommunication. It was one of the most dominant seasons by a rookie in NFL history. In a league that is designed to help quarterbacks and the offense, Sauce shut it down. Sauce became the 5th Jets defensive rookie to win the award, and the first since Sheldon Richardson in 2013.

to 👌 Garrett Wilson caught 83 passes for 1,103 yards and 4 touchdowns while working with four different and very average QBs. Imagine what he could do with someone like Derek Carr, Aaron Rodgers, or even Jimmy G. He also only recorded 2 drops all season according to PFF. Wilson became the first Jets offensive rookie to win the award, so that’s a great achievement.

🖥️ Yesterday I was playing with the PFF mock draft simulator and came out with this. If the Jets draft goes down like this, I’ll be one happy writer. We’re going to be covering Skoronski in our prospect profile today, so that seems fitting.

🧐 Aidan Hutchinson somehow beat out Sauce Gardner for the Pepsi Rookie of the Year award, Gardner had a much better year than Hutch, but with the Jets having two players on the ballot, the fan vote ended up getting split. At least that’s the only explanation I have.

I touched on this in yesterday’s quick throws, but Rich Cimini had a really insightful piece on Zach Wilson on Wednesday and it was quite revealing.

The first revealing element of the article is based on the pre-draft evaluation.

Zach Wilson came out of nowhere. In 2019 he was deemed a draftable developmental QB, projected to be taken in the late rounds of the draft. That year he completed 62.4% of his passes for 11 touchdowns and 9 interceptions.

In 2020, he broke out. Behind one of the most dominant lines in college football, he showed the off-platform throws that got fans and media swooning. Forget that on a weekly basis his skill position players were vastly better than the opposition or that he had all day to throw, the YouTube highlights looked good.

That year he threw 33 touchdowns to 3 interceptions while completing 73.5% of his passes. He started climbing draft boards and that one year of production was enough to get him into the conversation as a top-5 pick. According to Cimini, two high-profile decision-makers in the Jets organization were pushing him as the best QB prospect in the draft, above even Trevor Lawrence

"[LaFleur], along with Rex Hogan, were in 2021 draft meetings selling the narrative that there was a legit argument Wilson was better than [No. 1 overall pick] Trevor Lawrence," one source said. "[Some of us], we're like, 'What the f---?!' It's one thing to like a player; it's another to pump a prospect up higher than he actually is."