Getty New York Jets quarterback Zach Wilson throwing the football during an NFL game.
On Tuesday, June 14 the New York Jets officially opened their mandatory minicamp.
After nine weeks of voluntary activity, this was the first opportunity to gather the full team together in earnest. While we are just talking about practice, there were some really positive takeaways.
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Zach Wilson is in the midst of his first full NFL offseason after completing his rookie campaign in 2021.
Some members of the media raised some questions about how he looked during certain portions of the voluntary practices earlier, but there was none of that noise after Tuesday’s practice.
Zach Wilson is letting it spit today.
Just fired a ROCKET in traffic to Garrett Wilson during 7 on 7
DJ Bien-Aime of the New York Daily News highlighted Wilson’s insane arm talent during 7-on-7 work.
Zach Wilson has thrown only one incompletion so far. #MVPSZNLOADING
After some wayward practices early, it’s great to see the former BYU stud bouncing back.
Get ready to say this a lot in 2022 & beyond: Wilson to Wilson 🤝 @ZachWilson, @GarrettWilson_V #TakeFlight #Jets 🎥 @nyjets #Wilson2Wilson
Wilson looked extremely comfortable and very much in his element at mandatory minicamp. The fact of the matter is there is an ebb and flow to these practices.
Sometimes Wilson is going to look like a million bucks and other times he is going to struggle. Now the best advice is to take everything with a grain of salt, whether positive or negative until things start to matter more in training camp, preseason, and of course the regular season.
Although most fans have adopted the mindset that any bad news is baloney and any great news means that a Super Bowl trophy is on the way. You can pick your poison as far as that is concerned. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say.
Exactly What You Want to See
According to Connor Hughes of The Athletic, Wilson didn’t wow during practice with superstar plays, but it was rather his calmness that delivered in spades:
“This was the fifth Jets practice observed by media [this] summer. It was absolutely Zach Wilson’s best. There weren’t any highlight, jaw-dropping balls, but he looked as comfortable, decisive, and in control as I’ve seen him.”
This was the fifth #Jets practice observed by media of summer. It was absolutely Zach Wilson’s best. There weren’t any highlight, jaw-dropping balls, but he looked as comfortable, decisive and in control as I’ve seen him.
Finished 10 of 13 in 11-on-11. He was 13 of 16 in 7-on-7
We all know that Wilson can make the spectacular play.
The reason he was selected with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft is because of his ceiling. The former BYU passer has all the talent in the world, but what we needed to see this offseason and hopefully when it counts is consistency.
Wilson can’t miss the wide-open layups, those have to be automatic. Those plays aren’t sexy and won’t win headlines in the paper, but they’ll move the chains and keep drives alive.
In theory that should help the defense stay off the field and of course, that’ll provide more opportunities for this Jets offense to score.
Entering his second year with the same system, having the battle scars from last year, and a stronger command of the huddle should help lift Wilson to a new level this season.
As we get closer to training camp we’ll find out if all of his extra work this offseason paid off or not.
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