The New York Jets have put all of their faith into Justin Fields. It’s a dangerous game, but if it works out Aaron Glenn might just be onto something. But with Tyrod Taylor out for the rest of the preseason and his availability for Week 1 up in the air, Fields has all the pressure to not regress this year. The coaching staff said they were going to put all their faith into Fields and that couldn’t be more true right now.
Taylor underwent arthroscopic knee surgery, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, which will sideline him through the preseason. That leaves just Adrian Martinez and Brady Cook as options currently on the roster. Once again, the pressure is all on Fields to elevate this offense. He’s been pleading for a team to take a chance on him and that’s exactly what the Jets are doing.
But the Pittsburgh Steelers let him go for a reason. If they saw firsthand he wasn’t going to be enough to get them over the hump, then what did the Jets see differently. The Jets are going to come to a realization sooner rather than later and it will either make them look genius or push them further into quarterback purgatory.
The New York Jets blind faith in Justin Fields could hold them back from much needed success
The Jets are right to believe in Fields. I believe he hasn’t really gotten a fair shot. While the Pittsburgh Steelers traded for him last season, even in the first six games he played, he wasn’t treated with an ounce of respect to actually run the offense. He got a watered down version of the offense as a true rental until Russell Wilson was healthy.
In Chicago, he had the keys to the offense, but didn’t have the weapons. This year, he has both the opportunity and the weapons. The Jets didn’t draft a quarterback that would challenge Fields for the starting role, nor have they traded or signed a big-named free agent. But are they putting blind faith in a player that still has to prove themselves?
Fields hasn’t been bad, but he hasn’t taken that next step to look like a real starter in the NFL. He has inconsistencies in his passing game. As good of a run threat as he is, he won’t be able to run all over NFL defenses. The Jets are banking on his arm to make this team good. And they’re doing it blindly.
It’s good they’ve committed to a quarterback, but it might be the right one. Regardless of the situation he’s been in with his previous teams, they let him go for a reason. Either they realized he didn’t fit their system or realized his ceiling was too low to continue to waste time on him.
The Jets are going to come to that realization one way or the other. It could work out for them, but history shows Fields is more likely to hold the Jets back than he is to elevate them like they’re expecting him too.