When Jets rookie quarterback Zach Wilson missed four games with a knee injury this season, one of the talking points around the team was that it would be a learning experience for the first-round pick after a rocky start to his NFL career.
Wilson’s return to the lineup in Week 12 didn’t look all that different, but the first half of last Sunday’s game did show steps in the right direction. The ball came out quickly, Wilson made the right decisions, and the Jets scored touchdowns on their first three possessions. The second half of the losing effort wasn’t as productive, but it was something for Wilson to build on.
The rookie said he was “feeling comfortable with what we were doing on offense and things were just rolling” and that he feels like the time off had the kind of benefit that the team hoped it would.
“The cool thing about my situation is, I’m kind of looking at it like it’s my second year, kind of like I played the first season and took some games off because of injury,” Wilson said, via Rich Cimini of ESPN.com. “Now I feel like that excitement, the energy to want to play and finish this season is 100 percent there for me. I feel like I learned so many things and I worked to improve on them. Now I have to show them in the game. So now I feel like I’m two games into a new season.”
One good half won’t be enough to erase the negatives from earlier in the season, but a strong five-game run to close out the season would be a good way of building optimism heading into an actual second NFL season.