Jets coach Robert Saleh sounds like a man who believes any quarterback will look better in the team’s offensive system.
“The one thing that I can attest to is from a schematic standpoint,” Saleh said last week, “the scheme that [Mike] LaFleur is bringing is the best scheme in the world from an offensive standpoint, in my opinion.”
So how will Zach Wilson look in it?
Well, clearly Saleh thinks it will be a fit, but he might say that about anyone.
Wilson’s former offensive coordinator at BYU believes as much as LaFleur’s offense might fit any quarterback, Wilson can slide into any offense.
“Zach’s pretty unusual,” Jeff Grimes, who spent the past three seasons as Wilson’s offensive coordinator, said. “I really think he could do about anything you’d want him to do. I think he can fit into any number of different offensive styles. He’s got the arm strength to play in an offense that’s going to feature the vertical passing game and the play-action stuff. We did a lot of that at BYU.”
Zach Wilson; Mike Lafleur AP, GettyGrimes left BYU after the 2020 season and is now at Baylor. He has followed the pre-draft process and all of the speculation that Wilson will end up with the Jets. He said BYU’s offense was similar to the Kyle Shanahan offense that LaFleur is bringing with him from San Francisco. BYU ran a lot of wide-zone plays and play-action off it.
“He can operate under center,” Grimes said. “He can operate in the gun. He can operate in a spread [run/pass option] system where he’s being asked to make quick decisions and quick, rhythm, timing throws. He can do really anything you’d like a guy to do in the passing game and he’s obviously athletic enough to extend plays with his feet and make plays with the run game, as well.”
ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky, who spent 12 seasons in the NFL, agrees with Saleh that the offensive system the Jets will employ can make any quarterback look good.
“Any quarterback is going to fit in that offense,” Orlovsky said. “It’s a super quarterback-friendly offense. If you look at the offenses in the NFL right now that are playing good over a couple years, they either have a freakazoid at quarterback — Patrick [Mahomes], Deshaun [Watson], Josh [Allen]. Or they come from that [West Coast offense] tree — Tennessee, Green Bay, Minnesota, Cleveland, San Francisco — and that type of schematic system.
“Zach’s skill set will be very good in that system — his ability to play on the move, create things, the off-platform and funny-body throws, the dropped-arm angles. Because playing quarterback in that offense isn’t stagnant. It’s fluid. And he plays best when he’s fluid. His skill set is not all that different than Sam Darnold’s.
“So he’s got a skill trait and talent package that can take that offense to the next level, that can major in all that bootleg play-action, that ‘get him on the move’ aspect of things. Because his kind of talent is going to afford that. So I’d expect that he — as long as the pieces around him are good — will elevate what that offense can be, production-wise.”
Grimes said the things that separate Wilson are his intelligence, love for the game and his penchant for making throws without his feet in the proper position.
“He just has an unbelievable ability to throw the football anywhere he wants it to go off any platform,” Grimes said. “Having your body in an awkward position is something that happens a lot in the NFL due to pressure, and he doesn’t have to have the traditional throwing platform that a lot of guys have to in order to throw the ball where it needs to go. He’s incredibly accurate regardless of the position his body is in. He just has incredible arm talent.”







