After an outstanding 2020 campaign, Zach Wilson is this year’s draft riser. Whether it’s his tantalizing arm talent or it’s Trevor Lawrence burnout, he became a favorite player of the draft community — but is the hype warranted or is it lacking substance?
Wilson possesses above-average athleticism that may not have him breaking any rushing records anytime soon, but still poses a significant enough threat that defenses must account for him in the read game.
He plays well within the structure of the offense, throwing with excellent timing and anticipation to all areas of the field. Wilson is exciting to watch in creating off-script, extending plays, and making high degree of difficult throws look effortless.
Wilson is an aggressive player, who is always in attack mode — at times to a fault — where he tests windows that may yield negative results next level.
While Wilson can throw off-platform and from all angles, as well as deliver the ball to deep vertical areas of the field, his arm strength isn’t elite. He has trouble driving the ball and throws can hang up on him. Additionally, one of the draft narratives you’ll hear is his pinpoint accuracy- and while there’s a highlight reel of those throws, he has bouts of inaccuracies that is accentuated under pressure and will choose to flee a clean pocket to force the play out of structure too often.
I do have questions about his post-snap processing and if he’s actually seeing the field well or just trusting his arm and sending it. He’s occasionally late on throws as processing can be slow with post-snap secondary rotations. I think he will throw more interceptions in the league at first as a result of processing the speed of different looks and the 50/50 balls.
He’s not a safe quarterback by any means. He’s everything you want in a thrower, but can you develop him into a pro quarterback? Wilson looked great behind an elite offensive line against low-level competition — things that can’t be held against him — but when the game got messy or a little tight, his play dipped. Wilson needs to continue to develop the mental side of the game and to clean up his footwork to build upon the strides he took in 2020.
Overall Average Throw Efficiency: 85.4% (rank: 4th of 5)
Turnover Worthy Throw%: 1.87% (rank 2nd)
Cross-field throws: (opposite hash to outside the numbers, 10+ yards downfield):
- 15.2% of attempts (rank: 2nd)
- 84.6% efficiency (rank 2nd)
- 1 turnover worthy throw, 1.9% of cross-field throws
Short Passing:
- 34.7% of throws behind or within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. (rank: 3rd)
- Missed 10.1% of those throws (rank: 4th)
10-20 yard Range:
- Overall throw efficiency: 71.8% (rank: 4th)
- 32.1% of all throws
- 9 touchdowns
- 4 turnover worthy throws
- 29 Blue Throws in this range
Deep Passing:
- 16.9% of all throws were blue throws (rank: 2nd)
- 75.9% success rate on those throws (rank: 3rd)
- 40.9 average air yards per successful blue throw (rank: 2nd)
- 17:1 touchdown to turnover worthy throw ratio
Third Down Stats:
- 3rd down conversion percentage: 51.8% (rank 5th)
- 3rd down accuracy percentage: 78.6% (rank: 2nd)
- Average distance to go: 9.0 yards
- 3:0 touchdown to turnover worthy throw ratio
- Blue throws on third downs: 20.6% of all third down conversions (rank: 4th)
- Downfield successful shots on third downs: 14.7% of all third down conversions (rank: 2nd)
Fourth Down Efficiency:
- Average distance to go: 3.25 yards
- Conversions/Attempts: 10/12
- Conversion percentage: 83.3% with 66.7% accuracy
Third and Fourth Down Red Zone Efficiency:
- Conversions/Attempts: 11/11
- Conversion percentage: 100% (rank: 1st)
- 5:0 touchdown to turnover worthy throw ratio
Red Zone Efficiency:
- 55 Attempts
- 81.8% Throw Efficiency (rank: 2nd)
- 18:1 touchdown to turnover worthy throw ratio
- 23 end zone shots (passes delivered in the endzone)
“And Goal” Situational Efficiency:
- 24 Attempts
- 83.3% Throw Efficiency (rank: 1st)
- 17:0 touchdown to turnover worthy throw ratio
Hit as Throwing Efficiency:
- Missed 56.0% of HAT Attempts (rank: 5th)
- 1 turnover worthy throw (4.0%)
Off Platform Throwing:
- 83.7% Throw Efficiency (rank: 4th)
- 5:1 blue throw to turnover worthy throw ratio
- Roll Right: 67.4% of OP attempts
- 6% efficiency
- 2:1 blue throw:turnover worthy throw
- Roll Left: 32.6% of OP attempts
- 6 % efficiency
- 3:0 blue throw:turnover worthy throw
2-Minute Situations:
- 82% Throw Efficiency (rank: 3rd)
- 15 Blue Throws
- 2 Turnover worthy throws
Successful scoring drive on 53.8% of drive attempts (rank: 4th)