Robert Saleh Seemingly Takes Shot At Dan Orlovsky While Defending Zach Wilson

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If Zach Wilson is the New York Jets’ ship, then head coach Robert Saleh seems willing to sink with it.

Despite being 0-2 in his starts this season, and his presence and subsequent play in the starting lineup causing what appears to be another rift in the team, Saleh reiterated this week, again, that Wilson would be the starter at home on Sunday Night Football against the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs.

“He is our unquestioned quarterback. As long as he continues to show improvement with his preparation, the way he’s practicing, and even in these games he’s going to be our quarterback,” Saleh told the media on Monday.

That’s not the only eye-opening comment that Saleh made, as he also appeared to call out ESPN NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky, who posted a video earlier in the day breaking down Wilson’s utter lack of confidence and how it’s crippling the offense.

“Want to see what it looks like when a quarterback has just zero confidence?” Orlovsky said while analysing all-22 footage from the Jets vs. Patriots game on Sunday.

Orlovsky would go on to break down Wilson’s struggles for another 90 seconds.

Now, while Saleh didn’t mention Orlovsky by name, therefore making this nothing more than speculation, his comments to reporters just hours later seemed to directly reference Orlovsky’s take on Wilson’s poor play.

According to SNY reporter Connor Hughes, Saleh said “‘Everyone’ is going to have an opinion on the all-22, but many opinions are ‘misguided.'”

“Saleh said Wilson is not missing the players because of confidence. ‘There’s a balance there that he’s still working to figure out,'” Hughes reported.

Saleh is playing a dangerous game with his support of Wilson, who has done nothing in his two-plus seasons in the NFL to display any signs of being a franchise quarterback. Granted, while the playcalling of seemingly lost offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett certainly isn’t helping, Wilson isn’t even able to play to the level of journeymen backups such as Joshua Dobbs and Gardner Minshew, who just led their teams to victories over the Cowboys and Ravens, respectively.

The problem that Saleh faces is that — even if he does genuinely believe in Wilson and his public support of him isn’t just lip service — Wilson’s play has been so bad that risks losing the support of the fanbase, and even worse, the locker room. Lest we forget, just one year ago, this is a team that had t-shirts printed in celebration after Saleh benched Wilson for Mike White.