For Jets WR Garrett Wilson, ‘Benchmark Numbers’ Are Fine, but He Wants More

He said that his offseason work with wide receivers coach Shawn Jefferson helped his mental approach.

“I think the cerebral side of it, and just knowing things that are not just on gameday, but practice week,” he said. “Knowing how to manage your body, knowing what you’re going to get, how to study film, and having someone like Tae [Davante Adams] in the room and seeing how he goes about his business. Definitely a year that I learned a lot, and it wasn’t all for nothing. I feel like, regardless of what the stats would have said to finish, or how our record is, I took a lot away from this season, and I’ll be better off.”

Wilson made one of the most spectacular catches of this past, or of any season, against visiting Houston on Thursday night Oct. 31. Trailing in the fourth quarter, QB Aaron Rodgers found Wilson in the back of the end zone with a 26-yard scoring pass in which Wilson did a spread eagle while coming down with the ball in his right hand. Initially ruled out of bounds, the call was reversed after video review. The TD put the Jets ahead en route to a victory.

What really gets his juices flowing, Wilson said, are downfield plays. In the 2024 season, his longest catch went for 42 yards after he had a 60-yard catch in his rookie season and a 68-yard grab in the 2023 season.

“Just being as consistent and open as possible all the time,” he said. “And whatever it may be in downfield routes, that’s what I want to do. That’s what I feel like I do best. And I haven’t been able to show that through my first, you know, early part of my career. So I don’t want anyone to think it’s because I can’t. I got to prove it to myself that, that I’m still that person down the field, that’s going to catch more than he’s not.”