By nearly any available yardstick, Garrett Wilson's third season playing wide receiver for the Green & White would be considered another foundational block in an already stellar NFL career.
"I'm always a performance-based person, as far as the team," he said. "And we didn't play to the standard we wanted to play at. I don't think I played to the standard I wanted to play at. But down the road here, I'm sure I'll look back and be proud that I have some benchmark numbers that I hit to go along with the rest of my career. And that's kind of the extent of it. Now, yeah, it's cool. As I said, I'm just, I think it's more for older me."
That "older me" guy is off in the future. And at 24 years old, the Jets' No. 10 overall selection in the 2022 NFL Draft out of Ohio State, has consistently shown his quality, determination and commitment to winning.
For the third season running, Wilson surpassed 1,000 receiving yards (1,104 to be exact) and joined a group of 10 players to go for 1,000 yards in each of their first three seasons in the NFL. He also came close to overtaking another Jets receiver from the Big Ten -- Al Toon out of Wisconsin -- when he reached 3,000 career receiving yards in his 47th NFL game. It took Toon 46 games. Wilson now has 3,249 receiving yards overall.
To top it off, Wilson is now one of five players in league history to grab 80 receptions and go past 1,000 yards in his first three seasons.
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."
