Stop comparing Zach Wilson and Trevor Lawrence? Oh, stop it!

Zach Wilson has been having a hard enough time competing against quarterbacks on his own team this season. It’s almost unfair to start comparing him with those elsewhere.

But let’s do it anyway — if for no other reason than to get the young man used to it.

For the rest of his career, however long that lasts and wherever that takes him, the Jets’ second overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft will be linked to the first. On Thursday night, they were in such close proximity to each other that it was impossible to ignore their rare relationship with each other, two quarterbacks who couldn’t be more different in playing styles, physical traits and intangible qualities.

Wilson and Trevor Lawrence of the Jaguars squared off in prime time at MetLife Stadium, the second head-to-head in their short careers.

It was a significant game for two teams clinging to postseason dreams and in dire need of a victory to make their final two weeks of the regular season watchable, but this is the NFL. It’s a league driven by quarterback play, quarterback personalities, quarterback debates. The big takeaway on Friday morning is almost certain to be which of the two young men played better than the other.

They denied that, of course. At least it gave them something to possibly talk about when they chatted at midfield about two hours before kickoff of the soggy, wind-swept contest.

“I would just say it’s the Jets versus the Jaguars,” Wilson told reporters earlier this week. “We’re just trying to go against those guys. It’s interesting because it’s almost like it’s two separate things when you’re sitting there watching the other quarterback, it’s not even the same kind of game. We’re going against their defense. It is separate, of course, but you’re always trying to go out there and get that win.”

Said Lawrence in Jacksonville: “It’s annoying when people always compare [quarterbacks] and all that.”

Tough noogies.

New York football fans are more used to this dynamic than Wilson and Lawrence are, apparently. They went through it for a decade and a half with Eli Manning, who was forever tied to the quarterbacks selected in his draft class, Ben Roethlisberger and Philip Rivers. Every statistic and Super Bowl they claimed was parsed against the others from the day they entered the league to the day they left. They’ll continue to be judged against one another as they approach the doorstep of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the coming years, too.

What made that tri-valry so much fun and so long-lasting was that they were successful in their own ways. That isn’t always the case. Even someone such as Ken O’Brien, who had a very admirable and productive career, became an afterthought from the 1983 draft class that also featured John Elway, Jim Kelly and Dan Marino.

At least Wilson doesn’t have to play in the same division as Lawrence the way O’Brien did with his two natural comparisons.

Coming into Thursday’s game, though, Wilson was lagging behind Lawrence. He and the Jets won their first meeting last December, but Lawrence came into Thursday’s game clearly the more polished product of the two, having experienced a growth spurt in the past month and a half.

Lawrence had 1,680 yards, 14 touchdown passes and one interception and had helped his team go 4-2 in its last six games. During that same timeframe, Wilson played a disaster of a game in New England that continues to haunt the team in the playoff picture, was benched, came back because of an injury to Team Mayor Mike White, played somewhat respectably in his return and headed into his prime-time debut in the second start of his restart.

Lawrence has looked like the enticingly wrapped present under the tree with ribbons and bows that everyone hopes has their name on the tag. Wilson is the gift no one even bothered to take out of its brown Amazon box.

As of kickoff, the comp wasn’t looking like Manning-Roethlisberger-Rivers or even O’Brien vs. just about everyone in Canton. It was teetering more toward the cautionary tales that circulate around each quarterback-thick draft: Ryan Leaf and Peyton Manning, RGIII and Andrew Luck, Mitchell Trubisky and Patrick Mahomes.

“You never want to compare,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said of young quarterbacks. “Everyone’s situation is different. The styles and system might be different. How they got to where they are is different. To me, it’s not fair to compare.”

Probably not. But that won’t stop anyone from doing it.