One element of Zach Wilson's game is the ultimate deciding factor in how well he ends up playing on an overall level.

Zach Wilson‘s rookie season with the New York Jets was extremely erratic. Identifying patterns in his play is a difficult proposition.

Sometimes, Wilson would receive fairly good support from his teammates but still hang them out to dry. His Week 5 game against the Falcons was an example of this. Receivers were getting themselves open, but Wilson missed one wide-open target after another as he failed to capitalize on the opportunity to win a close game.

Other times, Wilson was thrown into hellish situations and performed well in spite of the circumstances. His strong late-season performances against the Jaguars and Buccaneers came at a time when he was surrounded by backups due to an onslaught of injuries.

The moral of the story is that Wilson was incredibly unpredictable in 2021. There aren’t many identifiable patterns in which you can say, “Wilson tended to struggle when he did this,” or “Wilson tended to play well when he did this.”

That is, except for this one particular factor.

After digging deep through Wilson’s numbers, I finally found a statistic that tended to correlate fairly closely with his overall level of play: his average time to throw.

We’ll abbreviate Wilson’s average time to throw as “TTT” for short. It simply measures the average amount of time that elapses from the point that the ball is snapped to the point that the quarterback releases it from his hands.

Speedy releases were the key to Wilson’s success. Wilson tended to play his best when he got the ball out quicker. When he held onto the ball longer, he tended to have a rough time.

On the year, Wilson registered a TTT of 3.05 seconds. That’s very high. It ranked fifth-highest out of 38 qualified quarterbacks in 2021.

The 3.0-second mark represented a crucial barometer for Wilson. In six games where he had a TTT under 3.0, Wilson registered an average game grade of 61.7 in my personal 0-to-100 grading system (which is based on my grading of every snap he played by rewatching each of them on film – learn more about that grading system here).

A grade of 50 represents an average-level performance, so Wilson’s 61.7 grade in those six games is pretty good. This six-game sample of sub-3.0 TTT outings includes Wilson’s games against the Jaguars (2.93 TTT), Eagles (2.66), and Buccaneers (2.65) – which were my three highest-graded games of the season for him.

Disaster often struck when Wilson had a TTT above 3.0. In seven games where he held the ball for longer than three seconds on average, Wilson had an average game grade of 38.3 in my grading system, which is brutal. This sample includes four games that many would agree were among his ugliest of the season: his contests against the Bills (3.73 TTT), Falcons (3.33), Patriots in Week 2 (3.29), and Saints (3.16).

Overall, when we include all 13 of Wilson’s games, the correlation coefficient between his TTT and his game grade was -0.584, which is decently strong (for reference, 0.000 would equal no correlation while -1.000 would equal a perfect negative correlation). This tells us that as Wilson’s TTT increased, there was a fairly strong tendency for his game grade to decrease.

What correlated even more closely with Wilson’s TTT than his overall game grade was his consistency.

In my weekly grading system for the Jets quarterbacks, I also track their ratio between positively-graded plays and negatively-graded plays. This gives us an estimate of their overall consistency, showcasing how often they beat the expectations of the given situation compared to how often they fail to meet the expectations of the given situation.

The correlation coefficient between Wilson’s TTT and his positive-negative ratio was a whopping -0.740.

In his six games with a sub-3.0 TTT, Wilson had a 2.27-to-1 ratio of positively-graded plays to negatively-graded plays, representing solid consistency (I consider 1.8-to-1 to be approximately league-average). In seven games with a TTT above 3.0, Wilson’s positive-negative ratio was a ghastly 1.11-to-1.

Six of Wilson’s seven most consistent performances came in games where he had a TTT below 3.0. Each of his six least consistent performances came in games where he had a TTT above 3.0.

As things stand, getting the ball out quickly is the key to Zach Wilson’s success. Perhaps he will one day develop the ability to thrive on long-developing plays. But until then, Mike LaFleur would be wise to focus on constructing the passing game around fast-developing concepts in which Zach can make quick decisions. These concepts will help him build consistency, which in turn will lead to a steady accumulation of confidence.

You alluded to this during the season and it is great to see you dive in deeper in the offseason and show just how stark the difference is between on time Zach and looking to make a big play on 1st and 10 Zach. I love his talent but early in the season he didn’t understand teams have to respect the entire field. If you just let them read the route concept they will take away your primary read. Go through your progressions and hit the open man. Defenses will eventually make mistakes and that is when you strike.

This is going to sound very simplistic, watch tapes of Dan Marino, make 3 reads then throw the ball out of bounds if the play is not there. Keep the chains moving, get close enough for a good punt, closer still for a field goal, then go for a touchdown! Can’t wait! Just extend This season!

I hoping after a year in the system he’ll be better at those long developing plays. They will need some of those plays to win games, not every pass can be a 6 yard slant, 10 yard in, or swing pass. He’s got to be able to stand in there, with time, and make some big plays down the field. I don’t disagree with your analysis but if he’s going to take the next step, then it can’t just be, get the ball out quick. He’s got to know the play, understand the defense, be patient, and take the shots…  Read more »

Agreed, in time, he has to be able to hit those deep shots from the pocket. They didn’t draft him to be Jimmy Garoppolo. With that being said I think it makes sense to have the quick game be his *primary* bread-and-butter for 2022 (until he shows strong mastery of the offense). It’s his best strength until proven otherwise and relying on it should allow him to get his confidence and rhythm to the point where they can start smoothly transitioning him into a more aggressive/vertical gameplan. But none of this is to say that every pass he throws should…  Read more »