Dan Orlovsky is a former quarterback and 12-year NFL veteran who now spends his time talking about football for ESPN. In the aftermath of the Jets’ 22-17 loss to the New England Patriots on Sunday, he didn’t mince words about his thoughts on signal-caller Zach Wilson.
Of the many sound bites he provided during an episode of ESPN’s Get Up morning show, Orlovsky said Wilson needs to “grow the fudge up”. He also said this (quote via Jetswire):
Right now, you’re holding your football team and certainly your offense back. You ain’t playing against the Mountain West anymore, dude. This is the NFL. And at some point, your organization is going to look at you and say ‘You ain’t the guy.’
(BYU doesn’t play in the Mountain West conference, but the message is still received here.)
Here’s the full clip, in all its glory:
.@danorlovsky7 says if he was in the Jets quarterback room, he'd have a message for Zach Wilson:
"It's time to grow the fudge up, dude." pic.twitter.com/YY5ghLwRxV
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) October 31, 2022
I don’t see any lies in the things the former QB said here. He probably ended up saying what most Jets fans are thinking anyways. New York had the Patriots right where they wanted them for one and a half quarters on Sunday. The costly roughing the passer penalty that negated a pick-six for the Jets took the sails out of this team right before halftime.
New England came out in the second half and just outplayed the Jets in every way. Until he threw a garbage-time touchdown, Wilson looked completely overwhelmed whenever he felt a little pressure.
As if his performance on the field — which included three interceptions — wasn’t bad enough, he piled it on himself when chatting with the media afterward. First, it was an exchange with SNY’s Connor Hughes when he brought up that a Year 2 jump wasn’t happening (according to the stats):
Juicy little exchange between @Connor_J_Hughes, #Jets QB Zach Wilson (@ZachWilson) after the game when talking about 2nd year jump. Connor was about to bring up some numbers, Z cut him off, ‘yeah I don’t care about stats’ ?: ? @nyjets #TakeFlight #Patriots #NEvsNYJ pic.twitter.com/BY3PdD8524
— Paul Andrew Esden Jr (@BoyGreen25) October 30, 2022
He also commented on how he doesn’t like throwing the ball away when there’s not an open receiver:
"And so I need to be able to keep doing that when something’s not there. It gets old, getting out and not seeing anything there." ?#Jets
— Rich Cimini (@RichCimini) October 30, 2022
I don’t think any NFL quarterback — or, any quarterback in general — enjoys throwing the ball away. But it’s also necessary to manage a game effectively and protect the football. Zach Wilson has consistently just thrown balls up with nothing but a prayer they’ll get caught by his own wide receivers. That didn’t happen in the second half on Sunday, and the Jets couldn’t get any momentum going because of it.
Throwing balls out of bounds doesn’t seem like fun. But is it really less fun to do that than getting picked off? I’m no NFL quarterback, but I’d choose Door No. 1 when given these choices.
The Jets find themselves in a weird situation. The defense is solid and the offense has plenty of attractive weapons, even with Breece Hall out for the year. It seems like Wilson’s play is holding this 5-3 team back. If he doesn’t get it together soon enough, it may force New York to make yet another decision about its future at quarterback.
Matt Musico can be reached at matt.musico@xlmedia.com and you can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
