Woody Johnson is an inept and tone-deaf owner who thinks he can solve the New York Jets offensive woes by bashing the starting quarterback. You can hate on Justin Fields all you want and criticize the fact that he’s not elevating this offense like they paid him nearly $30 million guaranteed to do.
But to go to media members and beat reporters and essentially shame Fields for how things are going this year, as Russell Wilson put it: Classless. The Jets have had an offensive problem for years and quarterback problems for decades, which stems long before Fields got to East Rutherford.
The Jets have gone all in on Sam Darnold, Zach Wilson, Aaron Rodgers and Fields. There’s a reason quarterbacks leave New York and become better. This team deserves better and honestly the franchise does as well. They don’t deserve an owner that disrespects their quarterback. It’s not fair to Fields and it’s not fair to Jets fans.
The Jets won’t be better until their owner does better
Let’s not forget, the New York Jets not only gave Aaron Rodgers the cold shoulder, but they also hand-picked Fields to be his successor. For Johnson to have the gall to unload on Fields after the team handpicked them is baffling and it’s everything wrong with the Jets. Johnson clearly would rather be a virtual owner than a real one – his quote on Fields alludes to his Madden rating.
The owner is the biggest representative of the team. If you look at the owners around the NFL, their mindset is reflected in their team. The Dallas Cowboys, the Cincinnati Bengals, the Cleveland Browns are just a few of them. That’s why the Jets’ dysfunction won’t end. As long as Johnson continues to run this team into the ground, they’ll be abysmal.
Johnson is trying to be like Jerry Jones without the championship pedigree. Jones is allowed to act the way he does because at least he wins. Sure it’s been three decades since their last championship, but that is more than the Jets have in their existence. Johnson wants to be the one that controls the team but he can’t win when doing that.
Until Johnson accepts that he’s the problem, the Jets won’t ever be a playoff team. And Johnson had at least a hand in turning to Fields as the savior for this team. To publicly say he’s the problem is only going to exacerbate the Jets’ problems. When he realizes he’s doing more harm than good, he’ll realize then his team will be able to actually be good.
The Jets offense is bad and it’s not completely Fields’ fault
The question will be what happened to Justin Fields? He came out of Ohio State as one of the top quarterback prospects in his draft class and after four miserable years in Chicago he played all of six games in Pittsburgh before landing in New York. Fields has never had a season with 3,000 passing yards. He’s best suited as a running quarterback, yet nobody can figure out how to get the most out of him.
This isn’t just a Fields problem, but an offensive problem as well. Tanner Engstrand is a rookie offensive coordinator that was hired on Aaron Glenn’s staff after serving as the Detroit Lions’ pass game coordinator, yet ironically, that’s their biggest problem. And to think that turning to Tyrod Taylor is going to help them makes it clear their woes aren’t going away anytime soon.
It’s the same thing the Houston Texans are realizing as well with C.J. Stroud. The offense is bad and at some point, when you have talented players, maybe it’s less about players and more about the staff. Fields’ best season was with Pittsburgh and they simplified the offensive system for him.
Arthur Smith was also a former head coach who had experience as an offensive coordinator. Maybe if the Jets hired a staff that would actually know how to work with Fields, maybe he’d be better than he has been. Fields is a problem and I am not absolving him of any blame, but these problems are far beyond Fields and what he can’t do. This is just as much an offensive problem as it is a Fields one.