Zach Wilson was much more than a consolation prize for not Tanking for Trevor well enough. 

You, the Jets fan, was certain of that. 

Your team was bad enough to be rewarded with the second-overall pick of the 2021 NFL Draft, which of course meant the second-best quarterback in the 2021 NFL Draft. 

Bill Belichick didn’t have the second-overall pick, your Jets did. 

Bill Belichick didn’t have a chance to draft Zach Wilson, Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh did. 

Good luck trying to replace Tom Brady, pal. 

Turnabout is fair play, even if it takes a couple of decades, right? Four quarterbacks, including Wilson, had already been drafted when Belichick had to settle for the fifth one of the first round. 

Justice. 

Parity payback at last. 

And here we are now, seven games left, and it is the fifth quarterback drafted, name of Mac Jones, who has looked more like the second quarterback drafted than Wilson. 

This is, of course, the worst nightmare for all Jets fans: Mac Jones acting like he’s been here before, so poised and polished and professional and getting better by the week

While Saleh extolled the virtues of Wilson taking a deep breath and learning by watching … Mike White and Joe Flacco … while he rehabbed his knee. 

The football gods can’t be this masochistic, can they? 

Wilson last played on Oct. 24. The Jets need to get him healthy and get him right. 

“We said we’re gonna make sure we protect this young man, so when he is fully healthy and he feels like there’s no limitations in his ability to play football where he’s not thinking about that knee, we’ll get him out there,” Saleh said. “But he’s gotta be 100 percent healthy before we get him out on the football field.” 

Because if they do not or cannot develop him over the remainder of the season, then the season will have been an abject failure. 

No one should have doubted that Jones landed in the right place. He gets to be coached by Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. 

Wilson’s head coach and offensive coordinator, Mike LaFleur, are rookies. 

In the midst of attempting to build a winning culture, they find themselves needing to fix their rookie franchise quarterback. 

The scorecard to date: 

Jones: 14 TDs, 8 INTs, 70.2 completion percentage. 

Wilson: 4 TDs, 9 INTs, 57.5 completion percentage. 

And just for rookie franchise quarterback kicks: 

Trevor Lawrence: 8 TDs, 9 INTs, 58.4 completion percentage. 

Trey Lance: 3 TDs, 1 INT, 52.1 completion percentage, 27-133-1 TD rushing. 

Justin Fields: 4 TDs, 8 INTs, 58.1 completion percentage, 58-311, 2 TDs rushing. 

So you know what time it is now for Zach Wilson? 

You guessed it — ALL GAS, NO BRAKE. Or ALL GAS, NO MORE BREAK. 

The best way to learn how to play quarterback in the NFL is to play quarterback in the NFL. 

Starting Sunday in Houston against the 2-8 Texans. 

There have been countless examples over the years that arm talent alone — and Wilson oozes arm talent — guarantees you nothing. 

This is the biggest lesson Wilson should have learned from the sidelines about quarterbacking in the NFL. You let the game come to you. You play hero ball only when you can recognize that there is a time and a place to play the hero. In the face of chaos, you see order. The battlefield commander cannot panic. 

Wilson has been bloodied up pretty good. Most young quarterbacks do. How he gets off the canvas will tell us volumes about him. The Jets wouldn’t have drafted him if they didn’t think he was made of the right stuff. 

His mandate now: Give them something to believe in. Give them someone to believe in. 

“Zach had a really good workout [Sunday], he’s being evaluated [Monday]. We’ll get him through another one [Tuesday] and be able to evaluate him from there, and we’ll be able to make a decision Wednesday morning,” Saleh said. 

Z Day. 

Jones has the Patriots surging and atop the AFC East. It appears inevitable that Wilson and the Jets will be watching him in the postseason. There would be nothing more deflating for the Jets and their Murphy’s Law fan base than to spend another winter of their discontent wondering if they drafted the wrong quarterback.