Poor Zach Wilson. Everyone is on his case because he’s not Aaron Rodgers and the Jets are losing big. It’s Zach’s fault, they say, he doesn’t do his homework, he can’t read the field. (He really can’t.) But…
But Zach Wilson is not the first top draft pick that has failed at the Jets.
The Jets have a history of drafting top quarterbacks who don’t meet their expectations. Before Zack, there was Sam (picked 3rd overall), and Geno (R2 pick), and Mark (picked 5th overall), and Chad (R1 pick)…
Here’s the problem: the Jets are quarterback killers. Young early-round draft-pick QBs join the team, fail publicly and get hounded out of NYC.
If it were one QB, okay: the QB owns it.
But it’s not. It’s every QB drafted.
And at some point, you have to ask yourself: what’s the common denominator here?
It’s not the QBs. It’s not the coaches.
It’s the organization.
Something about how the Jets organization operates takes talented young quarterbacks who were highly successful in college, and murders them.
I observed a company once that repeatedly hired executives who failed. There was clearly a hiring issue – who decided that every CEO needed to be a big man, a tall white guy with broad shoulders and an air of confidence? Who told every Senior VP, “Treat this like your business – make it work, don’t let anyone get in your way. You own it” – and then wondered why the leadership team didn’t work together to solve problems and created their own little fiefdoms?
Think about Murphy Brown and her revolving cast of disastrous assistants. Every week she had a new assistant who failed in their own, amusing way. Funny until it happens to you.
If you find yourself wondering what is wrong with the candidates you hire, why you can never find someone who works out, maybe it’s time to take a step back, seek an outside opinion that helps you take a different approach, and get new results.
Hiring the right person, helping them succeed, isn’t rocket science – but you have to get out of your own way.
I don’t know what the Jets need to do to solve their quarterback problem. This post isn’t long enough for me to explore that morass.
But I do know what happens in organizations and what you can do:
Look in the mirror.
And don’t waste your time hiring a first-round quarterback that you’re just going to kill.
Change+Management 