Zach Wilson wants to make one thing clear:
Sunday was not about him. It was not about his best day as a professional. Not about his two touchdown passes without an interception, 301 passing yards, 27 completions in 36 attempts and career-best passer rating (117.9) in a surprising rout of the Texans.
It was about everyone around him, his coaches and teammates, who made that breakthrough possible.
“I’m telling you guys, as an offense, everybody was clicking,” Wilson, the AFC Offensive Player of the Week, said Wednesday after practice. “Quarterback gets more credit than is deserved, but it’s truly an offensive unit that went out and I thought played well. How can we get there again as an offense? That’s the key.”
Asked if that means quarterbacks get too much blame for an offense’s struggles, Wilson smiled and said: “Yeah, but we’ll take it.”
It was a roller coaster last week for the former No. 2 overall pick out of BYU.
It started with reports he was reluctant to reclaim his starting spot after his two-week demotion, reports he later said were untrue.
And it culminated with the kind of performance the Jets have been waiting for — a brilliant four quarters of football when the lights, at least temporarily, went on for Wilson.
He looked like the quarterback who had his team firmly in the playoff mix, not Texans impressive rookie C.J. Stroud.
Wednesday, Wilson did his best to spread around the credit, almost refusing to talk about himself.
He raved about his receivers making plays on 50/50 balls, the protection he received from the makeshift offensive line, the game offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett called.
That’s what led to his career day, not some football epiphany.
“It just felt like we were finally playing football. In my three years it hasn’t felt like that, unfortunately, enough,” Wilson said. “How can we get to that point, where it feels like we’re just playing ball? We’re completing passes, we’re running the ball, we’re hitting keepers and things are just going in the right direction. That’s what [we saw] on film is things were going the right way for us, and we need to find a way to keep doing that.”
The biggest thing for Wilson, he felt while watching the film, was his decisiveness.
He made quick decisions. He didn’t hold onto the ball too long. When a big play was there to be made, he went for it. When there was room to run, he took off.
He was reacting rather than overthinking, letting it rip without playing out of control.
A big part of that, though, was that everyone was on the same page.
For once, momentum was on the side of the offense, and it snowballed in their direction.
Everyone performed well. It made his job easier.
“I think it shows us what we can do as an offense. Now that we’ve set the bar there, we’ve got to be able to show we can do it again,” Wilson said. “That’s always the thing is, ‘Hey, you did it once, now you got to show us you can do it again.’ ”