The lone New York football constant in the last decade or so is as follows: Unless you are a Buffalo Bills fan, you’ve seen some pretty bad quarterback play.
Whether it’s the New York Giants and their push to make Daniel Jones a legitimate quarterback, or the New York Jets and their revolving door of early-round picks blowing up within their rookie contract, football in New York may be at the lowest it has ever been.
Heading into the 2025 season, though, both the Jets and Giants are fielding different starting quarterbacks to hang their hopes onto. And each organization is hoping its decision leads to more success than its cross-town counterpart.
New York QB plans
As things stand right now, the Jets appear to be moving into the 2025 season with former first-round pick Justin Fields.
Fields has improved his completion percentage every year as a passer. In his four-year career with the Chicago Bears and Pittsburgh Steelers, he has thrown for 45 touchdowns to 31 interceptions.
What the former Ohio State product does at an elite level, though, is run the football. Fields is one of the best scrambling quarterbacks in the game today, totaling over 2,500 yards on the ground during his career.
With the seventh overall pick, it’s unlikely the Jets will be able to draft one of the top quarterbacks of the current class (hello, Jaxson Dart). Therefore, even if they were to draft a quarterback in the later rounds, the team will most likely forward with Fields as their guy—at least through 2025.
The same cannot be said for the Giants.
Big Blue recently signed Jameis Winston to a two-year deal worth $8 million. While the former first-overall pick is considered a quality backup option, the Giants are also in the waiting game for Russell Wilson and the one and only Aaron Rodgers.
Adding even further to the Giants’ quarterback room is that they are within striking distance of either Miami’s Cam Ward or Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders with the third overall pick in April’s NFL draft.
Both teams have different paths currently to find their starting quarterback next season.
So, which of the New York teams is currently better off at the quarterback position?
Who is better off?
Let’s be frank: Neither New York team has a quarterback situation that is “enviable” around the league.
It’s easy to see how the Giants come off with the better-looking team in the situation, though. Whether the team acquires Wilson or Rodgers to be a leader for a rookie quarterback is a lot better than the Jets having a young Fields leading the charge.
That is, until you look through the numbers.
Rodgers is also coming off one of his worst seasons from an analytics perspective despite a 28 touchdown-11 interception season. Wilson, on the other hand, struggled down the stretch with the Steelers and put forth a season that was just two points per game better than Fields when he took over as a starter.
The quarterback situation isn’t that simple, either.
The Giants have a head coach in Brian Daboll and a general manager in Joe Schoen, who is considered to firmly be sitting on the hot seat. That means at the slightest glimpse of trouble, they could force the rookie quarterback to play before they are ready.
Gang Green doesn’t have that problem. Head coach Aaron Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey are just getting started with their jobs and will have a little more patience from ownership than the Giants do. That means they can be patient with any quarterback they bring in.
Which quarterback room is better off in New York? Is the team without the pressures of producing right away for a hot-seat coaching staff? Or, could it be the one with a lesser signal-caller but patient staff that can get creative with their structure?
At the end of the day, neither position is one that’s turning heads across the league.
Nonetheless, the New York Jets’ current regime timeline sneakily plays a major role and can actually turn things around faster than people think.
