Jets made right call not risking Zach Wilson in telling move

An apocalyptic pregame storm wrecked a lot of tailgating plans, flooding the MetLife parking lots and trapping Jets fans in their cars. But that was OK. The gain would be worth the pain of the rain.

Zach Wilson was going to play football, after all. What else would you want to do in the dying hours of summer but watch a potential franchise quarterback throw spirals under the Friday night lights?

Even if it was only going to last for a couple of series, hey, this was going to be fun. Wilson was entering his last tune-up, and then he would walk out of the stadium knowing that the next time he took a snap in uniform, it would be for real. He would be going head to head against the Panthers’ Sam Darnold, the last quarterback who was going to change everything for the Jets. The guy who was effectively fired because his bosses believe Wilson is the better man for the job.

And then a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to an entertaining close to a productive preseason: Robert Saleh, rookie head coach, surveyed the instability on his offensive line and decided it would be a bad idea to expose Zach Wilson, rookie quarterback, and his top skill-position players to the inherent dangers of a violent sport.

“It just wasn’t worth it to bring them out,” Saleh said after a wonderfully wild Jets finish on the game’s final two plays earned them a 31-31 tie with the Eagles.

Saleh said his decision was made before the weather made an unholy mess of the MetLife field. He simply did not want to take the kind of preseason chance past Jets coaches had taken, and regretted, with Chad Pennington and Mark Sanchez.

“I wish I could play the whole game,” Wilson said beforehand.

“He always lobbies,” Saleh said. “He wants to play. He wants to be out there.”

Wilson didn’t play a single second. Instead, he stood on the sideline holding a ball and wearing a hat, earpiece, long-sleeve shirt and shorts while the backup Jets played a rain-delayed game against an Eagles team quarterbacked by Joe Flacco. Wilson was deemed too valuable to compete, but Philadelphia threw out there a 36-year-old former Super Bowl champ with 190 regular-season and postseason starts behind him. Strange how things work out in the NFL.

But this was the good news on a night of largely meaningless football: The Jets now have a young quarterback worthy of guarding as if he were a sacred scroll.

Frankly, it never made any sense for Wilson to play on a wet track, or on a dry track. Quarterbacks who had a hard enough time surviving a 16-game regular season are now being asked to remain healthy over a 17-game regular season. Why expose the franchise’s most valuable asset to even one unnecessary hit, especially when he had already shown an advanced poise in the preseason, and when so much is seemingly accomplished in the joint practices that are all the rage in today’s NFL?

Even to the untrained eye, Wilson has displayed playmaking mobility, a strong and accurate arm and a talent for throwing to the right receiver. When the rookie is looking at an opposing defense, he…