NY Jets: The underlying reality about Garrett Wilson’s 2023 season

It’s tough to isolate Garrett Wilson’s play from the putrid New York Jets passing game around him

No other New York Jets player had a harder job in 2023 than Garrett Wilson.

Yes, even compared to the quarterbacks and offensive linemen.

Wilson was out on an island on every play — as the only Jets receiver posing any legitimate threat to a defense. That meant opponents were constantly shading coverage his way and double-teaming him.

On the surface, Wilson performed admirably: he caught 95 balls for 1,042 yards and three scores. Boxscore analysis will make him a top receiver once more. What do the underlying numbers and the film have to say, though?

Analytics

Despite Wilson’s strong counting statistics, many of his other metrics were below average among 70 qualified receivers (min. 60 targets).

• 57.9% catch rate (59th)
• 11.0 yards per reception (57th)
• 1.54 yards per route run (45th)
• 6.4 yards per target (64th)
• 29.7% contested catch rate (59th)
• 5.9% drop rate (33rd)
• -6.5 catches over expected (67th)
• 3.4 YAC per reception (48th)
• 3.2% touchdown rate (60th)
• 2.1% fumble rate (55th)
• -3.9% catch rate over expected (60th)
• 49.5% first down rate (59th)
• 53 YAC over expected (26th)
• 0.56 YAC over expected per reception (36th)

Overall, Wilson’s numbers aren’t just below average, but they’re often significantly so. While much of that is attributable to the quarterback situation, receivers like D.J. Moore, Amari Cooper, and DeAndre Hopkins also had bad quarterback situations but did not rank quite as poorly in these metrics. Moore and Hopkins, in particular, were the only legitimate receiving threats on their teams. Even Wilson’s YAC, supposedly his biggest strength, was pedestrian in 2023.

Furthermore, Wilson’s lack of impact as a deep threat separates him from the league’s best receivers. He ranked 60th in catch rate, 58th in yards per reception, last in touchdowns, 58th in yards per route run, 63rd in contested catch rate, and 74th in targeted passer rating among 77 receivers with at least 10 deep targets.

Again, much of this had to do with his quarterback play. How much, though, will be answered by the film.

Film

I charted every one of Wilson’s targets this season. According to my (admittedly subjective) count, just 52.4% of Wilson’s targets were on target — placed where they were supposed to be and could have also been caught. (If a pass was thrown when Wilson was not open at all, I did not count that as catchable.)

However, 72% of his targets were catchable — but Wilson caught just 57.9% of his targets. That means 14.1% of his passes could have been caught but were not.

No one expects a receiver to catch 100% of his catchable passes, but missing on that many of his catchable targets puts the onus of some of his poor relative stats on Wilson. Of course, catchable and on-target are subjective, and it is difficult to distinguish the significance of these rates without a basis for comparison.

Still, this count seemingly validates the instinctive reaction from watching the film that Wilson did not catch the balls he should have.

Wilson had six targeted interceptions, but they were not his fault. At most, there was one interception against the Broncos that he possibly could have broken up, but the ball was too far inside and was not catchable.

As far as Wilson’s middle-of-the-road YAC, the answer to that lies more in his route distribution than his film.

On film, it seemed that Wilson did not have many opportunities for excellent YAC. Statistically, the reduction in his intermediate targets from 2022 to 2023 may best explain why. In 2022, 36% of Wilson’s targets were 10-19 yards downfield; in 2023, that reduced to 27.4%.

While his YAC per reception in that area of the field also diminished from 6.2 to 5.7, the 5.7 mark still ranked ninth among receivers in that area. Giving Wilson more targets in that area of the field would give him more YAC opportunities.

Still, Wilson did manage to put together some impressive YAC plays. He finished sixth among wide receivers with 19 missed tackles forced.

How to view Wilson’s season

The truth about how Wilson played as a whole in 2023 is nuanced. He did not play like a top-10 receiver in the NFL; that is clear from his underlying statistics, which are poor even compared to other No. 1 receivers with bad passing games.

Still, much of Wilson’s disappointing season is attributable to bad quarterbacking. Just 52.4% of the passes thrown his way were on target. He was often forced to contort his body in strange ways to have a shot at a reception.

Furthermore, in the absence of any other NFL-level receiver to keep the defense honest, Wilson saw coverage shaded his way on virtually every play. You can see it on the film — most of his routes more than 10 yards downfield were into double coverage. Even Tyreek Hill struggled with the Chiefs in 2021 when he was their only threat in the receiving corps, and that was with Travis Kelce as the team’s tight end.

To truly take the next step, Wilson will need to do a better job of catching the balls he should catch (by reducing his drops), hold on to the football more securely (and stop fumbling — he has four over the past two seasons), and, above all else, catch more of the balls that are off-target but catchable. Elite NFL receivers bail their quarterbacks out when a pass isn’t thrown perfectly. Wilson struggled to do that consistently this season.

I’ll leave Joe Blewett to analyze every route — there were certainly more examples of lazy or ineffective routes from Wilson, and he bowed out his routes way too much — but this film sample gives a pretty good overview of what happened on Wilson’s targets. It indicates where Wilson’s greatest areas of improvement must be, specifically on things that were in his control.

Follow Rivka Boord on Twitter @rivka_boord

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