The New York Jets are no longer hiding the fact they’re hoping to trade quarterback Zach Wilson seemingly as soon as possible.
It appears the Jets may have to pay in one way or another to get Wilson out of the building.
“Unless the Jets will be picking up most of Wilson’s fully guaranteed compensation package for 2024, the Jets will be stuck with him,” Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported on Thursday evening. “They’ll have to eventually cut him or keep him — and pay him more than $5.4M in 2024. Their best-case scenario would be to release him and hope for the offset, if/when he signs a one-year minimum deal with another team.”
The Jets reportedly shouldn’t expect to receive more than a conditional sixth- or seventh-round draft choice in return for the second overall pick of the 2021 player-selection process who flopped with Gang Green and was benched several times over his first three NFL seasons.
Andy Vasquez of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com noted on Friday morning that “the Jets might need to throw in a late-round pick to get a team to even think about taking on Wilson’s salary.”
Vasquez also said that it’s difficult to envision such a scenario playing out “because the Jets truly have no choice but to move on from Wilson if they find a partner or not.”
Jets head coach Robert Saleh allegedly blamed Wilson for many of the club’s offensive struggles over the past two seasons, and Wilson’s relationship with future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers reportedly “soured” this past fall.
Additionally, Jets owner Woody Johnson publicly said ahead of Super Bowl LVIII that the club “didn’t have” a legitimate backup quarterback to fill in after Rodgers suffered a torn Achilles just four offensive snaps into the 2023 regular-season opener.
“Johnson’s comments made it much harder for (Jets general manager Joe Douglas) to find a viable trade partner to deal Wilson, because why would you pay an extra dollar, or give up a single asset for a guy when the owner essentially just told the world that the Jets are moving on from him no matter what? No functional team would do that,” Vasquez wrote.
Some organization will eventually take a flier on Wilson, but such a club doesn’t have a reason to give the Jets anything of value for the 24-year-old before the new league year opens on March 13.
