Brayden Cosper lived with Zach Wilson at BYU for the last 2 last years.
The Cougars, a wide receiver for the Cougars, would occasionally arrive home to find Wilson, who was set to play Pingpong.
“I’d like to do that, ‘I have homework to do,” Cosper said. “He says, ‘Come on, let’s play the best three.” “
Soon, Cosper would find himself in a marathon session at Pingpong, as Wilson walked out of the table until he won.
“The next thing you know, we play the best three and I’m beating that and we’re playing like 20 games of pingpong,” Kosper said. “He’s got to win a series.
“He is definitely super competitive. He wants to be the best. “
This competitive spirit is what Wilson loves about the Jets and is expected to pick him Thursday night with the No. 2 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
The Jets would become the first team in the common draft era to select two quarterbacks in the top three within four years of each other. Wilson will replace Sam Darnold, who was voted No. 3 overall in 2018, and will become the latest quarterback to try to fill the void left by Joe Namath in the mid-1970s. The Jets have since picked up Richard Todd, Ken O’Brien, Chad Pennington, Mark Sanchez and Darnold in the first round and neither of them won the title to the Jets.
Wilson is a remarkable story. A year ago, he was in a three-way competition for a starting job at BYU. After a tremendous 2020 season in which he threw 33 touchdowns and had just three interceptions, he is now considered the second-best quarterback in this draft, behind Trevor Lawrence.
Not everyone is convinced that Wilson will be the answer for the Jets, though. He will have pressure to outperform Darnold, who was traded to the Panthers, as well as other top quarterbacks in the draft that the Jets are passing: Justin Fields, Trey Lance and Mack Jones.
The biggest question about Wilson is the quality of the competition before him in 2020, when he showed a big improvement from his last two seasons as a starter. The Cougars are an independent and COVID-19 forced them to scrap their original schedule and take whatever opponents could get. Wilson did not face a Power 5 team.
“I worry about Zach Wilson,” said Dan Orlowski, a former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst. “I think his job of playing quarterback was the easiest of the big five [quarterbacks in the draft] Last year.
“I think his team was the most effective when it comes to their competition. I think they were not assigned the weight of playing quarterback and had as much trouble as last year, even in the second quarter – or the NFL. Whatever the reality has been. “
Wilson will be the first pick of 10 Pix Jets general manager Joe Douglas in this year’s draft. Douglas has spent his first 22 months on a job building. Now, he will put his seal on the Jets’ roster.
Douglas acquired the number 23 from Seahawk when he traded Jamal Adams last summer. With that pick, Douglas can go in many directions. Cornerbacks, guards, linebackers, edge rushers, running backs and wide receivers are all possibilities. If players like USC guard Alijah Vera-Tucker or Notre Dame linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah come to him, the Jets will have to work hard to pass on that kind of talent. But Douglas could have opted for a weak position, such as Greg Newmom II of Northwestern or Caleb Farley of Virginia Tech.
Douglas is equipped with ammunition to move up or down in this draft if he chooses. Ultimately, though, this one will be remembered for Wilson and how he turns out.
“You heard me say that this is the most important position in sports, and there is a lot of it,” Douglas said, evaluating a quarterback. “And obviously there are physical traits that go into it: talent of the hand, athleticism. Then there are the intangible traits: intelligence, leadership, mental toughness, physical toughness. So, there are actually a lot of traits that go into every quarterly evaluation. And ultimately those traits are very important in determining the success of a quarterback. “
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