The New Orleans Saints checked all the boxes Zach Wilson was looking for in his next NFL team, he said Friday.
Wilson signed with the Saints last week. With this being the former No. 2 overall pick‘s third team in three years, he said he was looking for the team “that’s gonna help me be the best player I can be,” according to NOLA.com.
“I just picked based off priorities, like finding (a coach) that had played the position, an offense that I feel comfortable with, that I could go on and play well, a great fan base, great culture, great place to live,” he said. “That stuff was maybe more important to me than some of the other things you look at in the process of free agency.”
Wilson will battle Spencer Rattler for the backup job behind second-year quarterback Tyler Shough. In Miami last season, Wilson won the backup job but was passed over by the Dolphins coaching staff when they benched Tua Tagovailoa for Quinn Ewers.
The decision left the former BYU quarterback feeling “frustrated” and “confused,” the Deseret News previously reported.
With the Saints, Wilson said he plans to “do everything I can to learn and study and do the best I can.”
“And if I get an opportunity to play at any point, whether that’s preseason or season or practice — it doesn’t matter — just go out there, do my best and just try and help the team,” he said.
Shough and Wilson have a history dating back to high school. Wilson told reporters that he and Shough were in the same Elite 11 class.
“He probably doesn’t remember me even being there, but he was the (four) star, all the offers from everybody,” Wilson said. “And I was just like a three-star quarterback with just a few Mountain West offers and a couple Pac-12 offers back then. And then we both went our separate ways.”
What Kellen Moore said about Zach Wilson
Saints head coach Kellen Moore was asked about the team signing Wilson during his media availability at the NFL owners meetings on Monday.
“We were really excited to have an opportunity to sign Zach,” Moore said. “Hey, we had two quarterbacks. We’re going to need to sign some more, and our job is always to make those environments as competitive as possible. You know, we feel good about watching Zach over the time of his journey. Have followed him, evaluated him a number of times now. And so, I feel like the opportunity is right.”
Moore was then asked if he saw Wilson being able to come in and have his own Sam Darnold-esque redemption arc.
“Zach’s 26 years old. It’s really the same age as the rest of our quarterback room. And so, his journey’s taken him some different spots. You know, again, you do some homework on it. You evaluate everything. I think this will be a great opportunity for him to have, to be in, I think hopefully, a healthy environment from the quarterback perspective and, you know, just continue to grow and develop because he’s still got plenty of that available to us,” he said.