Florham Park, NJ – New York Jets Quarterback Zach Wilson The team announced Wednesday that it will miss at least three matches after recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery.
Initially, he was expected to miss a match or two. Explaining the decision, coach Robert Saleh said Wilson would not play until the fourth week “at the earliest”. The Jets face the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road that week.
This means that the planes will open the season with Joe Flacco in quarterback, starting Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens — the team that drafted it in 2008 — at MetLife Stadium.
“We’re going to make sure mind and body are at 100% and make sure we’re doing it right,” Saleh said of Wilson, seeded second overall in 2021.
Saleh also said that playing Wilson now “isn’t worth the risk. There’s the knee element. There’s the brain element. There’s the training element. There’s a lot of things other than the knee.”
Wilson has not suffered a setback, according to Saleh.
On Monday, Saleh left open the possibility of Wilson starting, saying the sophomore quarterback “looked good” in a side exercise that day. In truth, Wilson was never a serious choice. It was just games. He only had 22 days of arthroscopic knee surgery removed and he still hasn’t played it with the team.
At the time of diagnosis – the injury occurred on August 12 in a pre-season match – it was considered an injury lasting two to four weeks, sources said. Wilson suffered a meniscus tear and a bone bruise in a noncontact play, the same knee he injured last season – a four-week non-surgical injury.
Saleh has said on multiple occasions that Wilson will return to the squad once he is healthy. He missed 13 exercises and two pre-season games.
They could have put him in injury reserve for a little while, which would have kept him out of play for four games, but they chose that option because they want him to be able to train while he recovers. He won’t be training this week.
Flacco hasn’t started a season opener since 2019, his first and only season with the Denver Broncos. This match will likely have special meaning as he will face the team he drafted in 2008, the team that quarterbacks played to the Super Bowl title after the 2012 season. Replaced late in the 2018 season with the start of the current Ravens, Lamar Jackson.
Flacco lost seven starts in a row, the last five with the Jets and the first two with the Broncos. His last starter win was on October 13, 2019 for the Broncos. He played well on his only start last season, throwing for 291 yards and two touchdowns in a loss to the Miami Dolphins.
This will be Flacco’s first game against the Ravens, who traded him for Denver after the 2018 season.