NY Jets didn't start Zach Wilson negotiations until last week

Zach Wilson is officially under contract with the NY Jets following a standoff that lasted far longer than it should have.

Wilson and the Jets remained at odds over offset language in his rookie contract as well as the potential deferral of his signing bonus.

The negotiations carried over into training camp forcing Wilson to miss the first two practices. But on Friday, Wilson returned to the Jets facilities for the first time since minicamp.

While it's great that Wilson is back and we'll all likely move on from this silly debacle sooner rather than later, it still doesn't change the fact that all of this was wholly unnecessary.

In fact, it might even be more unnecessary than originally believed.

The NY Jets waited until the last minute to start negotiations with Zach Wilson.

The Athletic's Jeff Howe reported on Thursday that the Jets didn't start negotiations with Wilson until a week before he was signed — only a few days before training camp began.

According to Howe, the Jets originally wanted Wilson to defer $6 million of his signing bonus until the 2022 season. In the end, Wilson was able to secure his entire signing bonus within the first 15 days.

As soon as the Jets agreed to pay Wilson his full salary bonus, the former BYU star flew out from Los Angeles — where he had been working out former NFL quarterback, John Beck — to New York.

There were also a few hiccups regarding potential offset language in his contract. The Jets ultimately got their wish and included offsets in Wilson's deal — something the team has done with every contract they've handed out.

So it was a compromise. Very similar to the one the Jets agreed to with Sam Darnold back in 2018.

Much like Wilson, Darnold missed the first three days of training camp while dealing with a contract dispute.

One would think that, had the Jets started negotiations earlier, they might have been able to reach this compromise before training camp. Thus, Wilson would not have missed any valuable practice time.

It seems rather odd that the Jets would wait as long as they did to start negotiations with Wilson, but of course, we don't know the full story.

We'll all likely forget about this within a few days. But that doesn't change how unnecessary and avoidable this entire ordeal was.