Zach Wilson wasn’t on anyone’s first round draft radar over the two seasons of his BYU career. Then a 2020 breakthrough — 3,692 passing yards and 33 touchdowns in 12 games — planted a seed with NFL executives. This big-armed Utahan could be a franchise quarterback.
Still, Wilson’s 2020 season left questions about his efficacy on the field. But scouts got their answers when he took the field in Provo and launched an array of dazzling deep shots at BYU’s pro day. The player who looked like the third or fourth quarterback off the board — he was slotted in as the No. 4 pick by the majority of mock drafts that January — became a consensus top-two prospect. It wasn’t hard to understand why.
If his amazing 2020 season was the seed, those pro day throws were the fertilizer. They accelerated his growth, made him an unmistakable figure on the draft landscape and, unfortunately, turned out to be crap. Wilson was capable of launching rainbows on the run when the only pressure he faced was the glare of talent evaluators.
NFL Network described that as the “throw of the pro day season.” It’s easy to understand how coaches and analysts saw that kind of arm talent and its potential for greatness. Within weeks, Wilson was widely viewed as the second-best prospect behind Trevor Lawrence and was drafted second overall by the New York Jets.
Needless to say, this has gone poorly. Wilson has 15 touchdown passes in two NFL seasons against 18 interceptions. Five players have taken snaps at quarterback for the Jets since 2021. Wilson’s 70.9 passer rating ranks dead last behind Josh Johnson, Chris Streveler, Joe Flacco and Mike White. He wasn’t a top three quarterback in his draft class; he’s not even a top three quarterback on his own roster.
This is all a cautionary tale when it comes to overreacting to a player’s pro day. These showcases are engineered to make prospects look as good as possible. a chaos-free environment meant to boost the stock of the program and its players in one fell swoop.
So as good as CJ Stroud’s sideline throws or Cam Newton’s deep balls look, the skills we see in March are the football equivalent of a realtor’s photos on Zillow. Maybe they’re legit. Or maybe they’re just a combination of deceiving angles and polish that properly hide all the flaws of a massive fixer-upper.
