Zach Wilson spoke to the media on Wednesday. He said there is light at the end of the tunnel and he is working on getting better each week. He didn’t offer a timeline but he handled the questions from the media in stride. Here are the highlights of the interview.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your post-game process like, in terms of turning the page from a game, win or loss? How long do you kind of look at the film and what do you got to do there?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, you know there I see you got about 24 hours so we always, we get into Monday and we make sure we meet as a group, quarterbacks, team, offense, whatever. We go over what things we need to clean up, do better on. You got pretty much the end of that day to learn from those mistakes and then just turn the page and just build and say, \u2018Ok, now I just need to apply what I learned and get better, get better for the next week.\u2019 Then you kind of just completely forget about that game and it\u2019s onto the next. Then you start game planning and each week in practice, you focus on those things you\u2019re trying to get better at.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve talked to Robert (Saleh) Monday and today, just about trying to get the fallout quicker and rhythm with the whole offense. What are your thoughts on that and how do you prepare to do that better?<\/strong><\/p>\n Really it just goes to just how quickly can you get through your reads and then understanding the flow of the game. If the pocket\u2019s breaking down quicker, you know I need to be able to get the ball out of my hands faster. Sometimes if I got to skip a couple reads and get the ball to my check downs, feeling that, and it\u2019s really just reacting to what they\u2019ve given me. I think every single week that can just keep getting better.<\/p>\n How difficult is that, because what Robert was saying is that in college, you felt like you could make every play? You can\u2019t really do that right now, how difficult is it to find that balance where you know, this time I have to get rid of it, versus, I want to stay alive to make a big play?<\/strong><\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s necessarily difficult, I\u2019d say the issue is just that you want to be able to convert on every third down and long and you want to be able to move the sticks. It sucks in a game like that to just have three and outs and come out, sit on the sideline for a long time. I\u2019m competitive and I want to just keep going and I want to put us in the best situation to win, of course. In some of those situations, a quarterback\u2019s job is to kind of survive a play. If something\u2019s not a great play call because maybe he called a play for this coverage and they gave us something else, it\u2019s how can I make the best decision of what we have. If someone, if front gets beat, how can a quarterback overcome that and put us in the best situation to do that? I\u2019m not saying that the guys that are around me aren\u2019t doing great because they are. I have a lot of great support around me. It\u2019s how can I overcome some of that stuff and be able to get the ball in some of my playmakers hands and let them do their thing.<\/p>\n Is there anything you can do in practice or anything specifically you are doing to kind of help you with that timing of knowing, \u2018Okay, the ball needs to be out now?\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, coaches talk about it every single day. They do a good job at teaching me, let your feet and eyes take you through your progressions. When you hitch on something a little too long, you need to be able to just move on and you get a feel for it in the games, and I think that\u2019s one thing I need to get a feel for is how is the pocket in the games? Is it closing quicker? Do I need to get the ball out? As the game goes on, if I feel like I got a lot of time back here, let\u2019s see if we can make something work more down the field and I think it\u2019s just feeling that as the game goes on.<\/p>\n How are you doing mentally, just as far as, you know it\u2019s a tough start and you got to keep your head up. Is it a challenge at all for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n No, I would say mentally I feel good. I would say I feel really good. I feel confident. I feel, besides everything else, I feel like watching just the tape with us and going through things, I feel like it\u2019s really close. I feel like every play it\u2019s one guy here, one guy there and we need all 11 to be great. I need to do my part, of course. I\u2019m included in that one guy making that mistake. There\u2019s plenty of plays like that, so I feel like we\u2019re really close as an offense to just having all 11 guys being on the same page. I do have that confidence that I feel like it\u2019s right there and I knew this was going to be tough for us because it\u2019s our first time altogether, first time in a new offense and there\u2019s going to be some adjusting, but as long as we take those losses as a learning experience and every single week we just keep stacking the bricks and keep getting better, then I think we\u2019re going to be right on track to where we need to be.<\/p>\n Zach, I think, I mean Justin Herbert\u2019s probably the most recent one of a young quarterback that came in and had immediate success. There\u2019s been other ones as well, but far more have kind of taken a more slow and steady approach. I was wondering, as a kid whose coming into the NFL, for you, is it challenging or has it been challenging to not kind of look at what Justin did and be like, \u201cWell why can\u2019t we be having the same success he did?\u201d How do you compartmentalize that?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, I would just say it\u2019s completely different situations. I know Justin, he\u2019s a great quarterback, good dude. But he\u2019s with the Chargers, completely different thing. Different scheme, different coaching, different players around him and different teams that they\u2019re playing against and different things they\u2019re asking him to do. It\u2019s all completely different. So, I guess what I\u2019m trying to say here is I can\u2019t compare what I\u2019m doing to him. Every quarterback has got a different situation. Really, I\u2019m just competing with myself every single day. How can I just keep getting better? And just know that it\u2019s going to be a process and I\u2019m not looking to need that perfect success right now, it takes time. It\u2019s not worth getting down on yourself and losing confidence over because this is a marathon.<\/p>\n When you look back at the film and when you assess your performance over these first three weeks, have you seen anything to make you think like it\u2019s about to click or the big gains about to come or something\u2019s like, it\u2019s slowing down a bit. Have you seen anything? Maybe we can\u2019t see it watching it live or watching it back, but you can see something that tells you it\u2019s getting there?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, absolutely. There were lessons I took from game one and it was like, \u2018Hey, I need to do this better in Week Two.\u2019 Week Two comes and obviously we had a rough go there and now it was like what can I do better there? I felt like I had my best week of practice this past week and those are still the things that I\u2019m still practicing going into this next week, so I feel like three weeks in I\u2019ve learned a lot. Like you said, I feel like there\u2019s light at the end of the tunnel as far as where we\u2019re trying to get. You can\u2019t put a timeline on that, it\u2019s going to take time and we\u2019re just going to keep working it. That is why I feel so confident.<\/p>\n The fans got one you a little bit in the last home game. So now that you\u2019re back in front of the home fans, what\u2019s your thought process going in and facing them again and is there a part of you that wants to do something spectacular early to win them over?<\/strong><\/p>\n Like dangling fish bait? (joking) No, I got you. It\u2019s like treat it as practice. Go out there and do our thing, exactly what we do every single day. There\u2019s no need to do anything special. We got to put a show on for those guys, obviously, but no need to do anything different than what we do here in practice. Obviously, last time we were there, it wasn\u2019t a great showing and so, they booed us, and it is what it is. But we got to do better and that\u2019s on us, that has nothing to do with those guys. We got to be able to play better.<\/p>\n Zach, we\u2019ve seen you avoid rushers and we\u2019ve seen you scramble some, but that only designed run we saw was the two-point conversion in Carolina. Is that something you like doing? Do you like running the ball and is that something you did at BYU?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, running the ball is nice until you get hit by someone that\u2019s like 400 pounds and stuff. (laughter) I do enjoy it, I mean I think it\u2019s another element that a team has to prepare for when you can. I would say that it\u2019s definitely not something I would love to do as far as designed quarterback runs go, but when you\u2019re in the red zone or in a critical third-down situation and you have to make somebody have to play that threat that a quarterback can run on the edge, I think that\u2019s a very good thing to have. When we need it, of course. And then I need to be able to slide and get down and protect myself as well. But I think having the ability to do that is something the defense has to spend time and prepare for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zach Wilson spoke to the media on Wednesday. He said there is light at the end of the tunnel and he is working on getting better each week. He didn’t offer a timeline but he handled the questions from the media in stride. Here are the highlights of the interview. What\u2019s your post-game process like, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":56982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[213],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-57085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jet-news"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Zach-Wilson-Podium.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-eQJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57086,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57085\/revisions\/57086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}