Gang Green Nation
The Jets have a new signal caller in 2025, and he’s trying to turn his career around.
Around this time every year I do a roster countdown with an individual article for each player. I have found that this approach frequently seems like a good idea when I start. Then training camp arrives, and suddenly there are a lot of other things to talk about.
With that in mind, I have decided to change the format this year. Instead of doing a season preview for each player, I am going to write a preview for each position group. We start today with the quarterbacks.
Justin Fields
Fields is a high Draft pick whose career is off to a very disappointing start. The fifth year pro is now on his third team and hasn’t come come to justifying his spot as the 11th overall pick in 2021. Still, there have been enough flashes of high end play for teams to believe his talent can be channeled in the right situation.
The Jets gave him a moderately priced contract. It is the type of deal that will turn into a bargain if Fields makes progress. Conversely, it will go down as an overpay if his performance doesn’t see a jump.
That might sound familiar. Former Jets general manager Joe Douglas gave out a lot of contracts like that to players with similar pedigrees. Unfortunately, most of them failed. Whatever flashes guys like Jarrad Davis, Mecole Hardman, and Javon Kinlaw displayed in their first few seasons proved to be mirages.
Every coaching staff and front office has players they believe they can get more from than other teams. To me, one of the biggest separators of the good from the bad is the ability to correctly identify players who underperformed elsewhere capable of doing better in a different circumstance.
Given that the first such project Aaron Glenn and Darren Mougey chose is at the quarterback position, the stakes could not be higher.
Anybody who has watched Fields’ first four years would likely acknowledge he is a work in progress as a passer. He misses too many reads and frequently lacks pocket presence. There have been some real flashes of quality play, however.
I’ll copy my own work from early in the offseason to prove that point.
I took a look at Fields’ career. He has posted a passer rating of 100 or better in 21.6% of the games where he has thrown at least 20 passes.
That number is meaningless without context. Should we be encouraged? Discouraged?
I decided to look to Sam Darnold’s career. Prior to 2024, Darnold had a 100 or better passer rating in 23.6% of the games where he had at least 20 attempts.
After a very rough first six years in the NFL, Darnold took a big step forward in 2024 starting for a Minnesota Vikings team that went 14-3. Darnold finished 10th in the MVP voting.
I...
