The New York Jets signed Justin Fields to a two-year, $40M contract in free company after which seemingly dedicated to him as their 2025 Week 1 beginning quarterback once they did not choose a QB throughout the NFL Draft.
For an article revealed on Thursday, ESPN’s Aaron Schatz urged the Jets ought to’ve a minimum of taken a flier on a quarterback throughout the draft’s second or third day.
“There’s a risk that free agent pickup Justin Fields will lastly fulfill his NFL potential in his fifth season,” Schatz wrote. “However these odds are lengthy. Fields had his greatest season in 2024 with a 50.8 QBR, but it surely got here in a six-game pattern. And that QBR would have ranked twenty third within the NFL if he had thrown sufficient passes to qualify. That is higher than what the Jets obtained from Aaron Rodgers final season, but it surely nonetheless is not good, and there’s no assure Fields can match or enhance on it.”
In early 2024, Kevin Fishbain
of The Athletic famous that particular stats indicated that Fields was one of many league’s worst fourth-quarter quarterbacks throughout the 2022 and 2023 seasons. The Chicago Bears traded the 2021 first-round option to the Pittsburgh Steelers in March 2024, and Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin later benched Fields this previous fall, despite the fact that the 26-year-old went 4-2 as a starter.
It’s possible the Jets would’ve drafted Louisville quarterback Tyler Shough at decide No. 42 after Gang Inexperienced took Missouri offensive sort out Armand Membou at selection No. 7. Nonetheless, the New Orleans Saints chosen Shough at decide No. 40.
In the meantime, numerous stories linked the Jets with Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders lengthy earlier than he dropped to the draft’s fifth spherical. The Jets had four opportunities to accumulate Sanders earlier than the Cleveland Browns took him at decide No. 144, however as an alternative bolstered different positions with their draft property.
No matter how poorly Sanders handled
the predraft course of, few would’ve blamed the Jets for taking him with the a hundred and thirtieth decide. First-year common supervisor Darren Mougey and rookie head coach Aaron Glenn went in a distinct path, however one wonders if they will spend subsequent offseason trying to find Fields’ substitute.
