It’s only been two seasons for Garrett Wilson in the NFL but the losses are mounting up in his young New York Jets career.
Battling several different ailments on Sunday night, Wilson caught nine passes for 93 yards – a gutsy performance filled with acrobatic catches. His performance, like many of his best in the past few years, was wasted after the Jets fell to the Las Vegas Raiders by a 16-12 final. Now at 4-5 on the season, the chances of the Jets ending their decade-long playoff drought grows smaller, and the frustration inside the facility will only get louder.
“I don’t know what y’all want me to say, man,” Wilson said following the loss courtesy of the Athletic. “I’m tired of this, man. I want to play better. The whole offense wants to play better. We’ve been saying what we’ve been trying to do. We come out every week trying to make it happen. It’s frustrating.”
This wasn’t how 2023 was supposed to go for the reigning offensive rookie of the year.
Coming off a record-setting first season in Gang Green, Wilson was expected to reach new heights with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. With a veteran receiver room in front of him following the additions of Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb, it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before the former Ohio State product would reach his full potential.
Those dreams were dashed four plays into the season and since then, the Jets offense has comprised of their top receiver’s talents to do anything consistently on a weekly basis.
It’s enough to make any top player on offense go crazy. Even if the 23-year-old made sure to clarify his comments following his media session.
“No one ever said this was going to be easy,” Wilson added. “No one told me my career was going to be easy. No one told me nothing was going to be easy. I have to put my head down and get to work. That’s how I’m going to approach this thing.”
An offense that consists of Wilson, flashy running back Breece Hall, and a four-time pro bowler in Dalvin Cook should not be in the midst of an 11-straight quarter touchdown drought. That, unfortunately, is where the Jets are though. Lack of creativity, poor play-calling, bad quarterback play, and mindless penalties have all played their part in the recent run of futility for Gang Green.
Eventually, it’s up to the players to try and figure out a way to get out of their recent slump.
“At the end of the day we always have to look at ourselves,” Breece Hall said. “I critique myself harder than anybody, so I feel like I can always do better. You’ve got to look at the man in the mirror first, you can’t point fingers or anything like that, & then we’ve got to come together as a whole & figure out what we need to do to get better.”
In the case of Wilson, he may just be in his second year in the NFL, but he’s willing to do whatever it takes to help the organization turn around its recent sorrows.
Should that mean the receiver would need to be vocal in the locker room more? So be it, Wilson is more than fine with it.
“I could see something like that going down soon, cause it has to,” Wilson concluded. “I’m gonna take it upon myself, but I know we’ve got some guys in the locker room that their voice holds a lot of weight & we’ll see what it’s like driving back to New York, what we talk about. We’ve got to figure this out.”
At 4-5, the Jets are running out of answers to save their season. The lack of changes has already been a startling trend for the offense, but the longer it goes on without any major solutions, the worse 2023 can get for a team that had legitimate aspirations going into the year.
Until that time, it’s another year where Wilson continues to show his greatness, and few around him can do anything more than watch.
