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Jets QB Zach Wilson welcomes possible quarterback competition

The 2022 season was supposed to be the year Zach Wilson’s play leaped significantly from his rookie campaign.

That never turned out to be the case for a variety of reasons.

Now the Jets, after a 7-10 season and six-game losing streak to end the year, have a lot of questions to answer regarding Wilson and the quarterback position after he was benched multiple times.

Despite the turbulent year, Wilson told reporters he would be comfortable with a quarterback competition should it lead to that next season.

“I’m going to make that dude’s life hell in practice every day,” Wilson said. “I’m going to go out there and do my best to show the coaches that I deserve to be there.

“It’s not in a negative way, it’s a positive way. It’s making everybody else better, hopefully, and you should go out there and attack every single day.”

Coming into training camp, there were high hopes for Wilson in 2022. But he got off to a bad start after suffering a meniscus tear during a preseason game against the Eagles. While it appeared he could have missed significant time because of the injury, Wilson only missed the first three weeks of the season.

When Wilson returned, the Jets reeled off four consecutive wins in October, which got the team back into the playoff race after a 1-2 start. However, Wilson’s play was mediocre as he regressed from his rookie season, missing open receivers and misreading defenses. The Jets won during that time because of their top-five defense and rushing attack with Breece Hall before his season-ending ACL injury in October.

At its bye week, Gang Green was 6-3 following an upset victory against the Bills, but that would be the height of its season. The Jets lost seven of their last eight and six straight to end the year.

Also, Wilson was benched for Mike White following a 10-3 loss to the Patriots in October after finishing 9-of-22 for 77 yards. He also failed to take any personal accountability after the loss, as the Jets defense didn’t allow a touchdown.

Wilson eventually became the Jets starter once again after White fractured his ribs against the Bills in December. But Wilson’s play was once again inconsistent as the quarterback threw for 409 yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions while completing 50.9% of his passes in two games against the Lions and Jaguars before being benched for Chris Streveler.

Wilson didn’t play in the Jets final two games of the season as White and Joe Flacco started against the Seahawks and the Dolphins, respectively. He ended his year throwing for 1,688 yards, six touchdowns and seven interceptions in nine games.

“When you look at this league and I get it, you can take whatever I’m saying, and you can go a million different ways, all these players develop in different ways, so sometimes when you make a decision for the moment, doesn’t mean you’re losing confidence about the future,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said.

“We can look back at the past for this year and say, you guys made a lot of mistakes, you’re not showing a lot of faith in him, you can whatever, but the reality is, it’s making decisions at that moment for what you think is best for the organization. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have faith in that individual for what he can become in the future, so as it pertains to Zach, I do expect him to take a jump going into his third year and understanding how to handle everything and decompressing and resetting and doing all of that stuff.

“I think he’s going to have tremendous amount of growth. Again, he’s only 23 years old, so I do expect him to have that big jump and whatever happens form there, happens.”

Now Wilson’s future with the Jets is in a bit of flux. Gang Green drafted him less than two years ago, but it appears it could sign a veteran during the offseason to at least compete with Wilson in 2023.

When asked if he would commit to Wilson as his starting quarterback on Monday, Saleh declined to do so. That is a significant change from earlier this year when Saleh said Wilson is the Jets starting quarterback despite some poor performances.

Quarterbacks such as the 49ers’ Jimmy Garoppolo and the Raiders’ Derek Carr could be available this offseason. Wilson has two more years left on his rookie contract, but it appears the Jets at least want to continue to develop him even if a veteran is brought in.

“In regards to Zach [Wilson], I’m going to echo Robert [Saleh] in a lot of what he says and philosophically, we’ve never been a team that’s given up on talent early,” Jets general manager Joe Douglas said.

“We all know the talent that Zach possesses, so we’re going to do what we’ve done with every player and that’s work with Zach, develop Zach, and we’re going to do everything we can to ultimately help Zach reach his full potential here.”

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Source: Berkshire mont

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