The Jets have been trying to find someone to trade for quarterback Zach Wilson, the second overall pick in the 2021 draft. They’ve had no luck doing that. The league meetings give them an opportunity to make a deal, since power players from every team will be in the same place.
Will they? He has a fully-guaranteed compensation package of just over $5.5 million. It’s hard to imagine any team welcoming that financial burden.
If they cut him, Wilson could sign with another team for the three-year minimum of $1.055 million, with the Jets on the hook for the balance. New York’s best move could be to agree to pay that amount and then hope for something paltry in return.
Even then, the new team would be on the hook for the $1.055 million in remaining guaranteed salary, wiping out the freedom to decide by late August to move on with no financial consequence.
The most likely outcome could be that the Jets will have to just cut the cord on Wilson and hope to eventually save $1.055 million.
The sad part, for Wilson, is that he still might develop into a good quarterback. He has been stigmatized by three years of failure in New York. Some of it surely is on him. But there could be other factors at play.
He wasn’t a reach at No. 2. Most saw him as the clear second choice behind quarterback Trevor Lawrence. How much of his struggles trace to him, and how much trace to his circumstances, coaching, etc.?
No one has been willing to make the bet by agreeing to take on all or part of his guaranteed salary, and by giving up draft capital or whatever else it would have to trade for him.
As noted by Rich Cimini of ESPN.com, the Chiefs are the only team with a clear opening at the backup quarterback position. From the moment it appeared that Wilson wasn’t long for New York (basically, after the Thursday night debacle against the Jaguars in late 2022), a chance to learn from Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, and company made the most sense. It still makes sense for the Chiefs to give Wilson a try.
If they can do it for a non-guaranteed $1.055 million salary in 2024, maybe they will.
