GREEN BAY, Russia. – Probably Zach Wilson is tired of seeing the Packers defense right now.
In two joint practices between his Jets and Packers this week, the rookie quarterback was under siege. In practice there is no approach, so the “sacks” are in the eye of the beholder, but it looked like Wilson would have been fired 12 times for both practices, and he was pressured in many more cases.
The good news for Wilson is that the Packers are not expected to play their starters in Saturday’s preseason game at Lambeau Field. Like last week against the Giants, the Jets will see backups lined up in front of them.
But the biggest problem is the protection provided for the rookie quarterback this season and whether that will be a concern. Some of the problems fall on the offensive line, but this week the coaches seemed like they wanted to see Wilson also get rid of the ball faster.
“In the NFL, you literally have a problem getting rid of football, otherwise it will hit you, that’s a complete league,” head coach Robert Saleh said. “There will always be traffic around his feet. You can have the best O line in the league, you will still have traffic in and around the quarterback. Zach must learn to run at the pace of the play, to get the ball in and out of the hands as quickly as possible, because he can relieve some of the pressure on the offensive line by being decisive and quick in decision making. ”
One of the most complicated aspects of evaluating Wilson in the training camp has been the rigidity of the practices. Wilson caught everyone’s attention at BYU last year for his ability to do “out of time” plays, that is, some improvisation when the plays broke down. This is not the training ground. The training camp consists of executing the works in the way the offensive coordinator draws them.
With that in mind, Wilson has tried to stay more in his pocket and dominate the offense, instead of getting out of his pocket and making crazy throws or getting the ball in and running. Saleh said he will arrive in real games.
“Right now, it’s a matter of him really taking the offense, but I think naturally I bet he’ll respond the same way, deliberately trying to keep it in his pocket to review his readings,” Saleh said. “Feeling his pocket, he knows what’s going on and he has a good rhythm, he can do all this. I think his ability to get out of his pocket will be a natural transition. Again, he showed a couple [Wednesday] and I think that as he gets more comfortable with the offense, he will start to improvise ”.
As Saleh suggested, Wilson said he’s been trying to stay in his pocket and it’s hard to simulate situations where a quarterback has to run because there are no tackles in practice.
“I think it’s so hard because in practice, when they don’t attack us, it’s like knowing whether to escape or not and that’s what’s so hard,” Wilson said. “You just need to pretend like good pockets and I think, like I said last week, once the bullets are alive, I think you naturally understand when to get in and out of your pocket and escape. You’ll see messy fronts, guys who s ‘they’re opening or whatever and you understand when you have to go out, but now it’s too hard to know when the boys stay behind us, if they hit us right there or if we have to go there or if we just stay there and throw the ball.’ .