Reporting from Florham Park, NJ — For a quarterback who has gone 14-30 as a starting quarterback in his first three years, Justin Fields seems to have a long leash with the New York Jets.
After signing a two-year, $40 million deal this offseason, Fields has walked into Florham Park as the organization’s starting quarterback. Even with his poor record and numbers, the Jets won’t have open competition at the position.
That is something that general manager Darren Mougey isn’t regretting either.
Jets Remain Committed to Justin Fields
Speaking to reporters in his pre-draft press conference, Mougey made it clear that the team was fully committed to having Fields as its starting quarterback, even without a full competition.
“We feel really good with Justin as our starter,” Mougey said. “It was a priority in free agency, and we’re glad we got him here…we always want to have competition at all positions, but we’re really happy to have him.”
Mougey did say that there would be competition at all spots, but restated his commitment to Fields being their starter for the 2025 season.
There’s a very strong possibility the former first-round pick of the Chicago Bears back in 2021 would not have joined the team had he not received assurances he would be the starter.
Fields is looking to shrug off his early career struggles with the Bears and Pittsburgh Steelers moving forward, though. While the Ohio State product has improved his completion percentage over each season, standard struggles have held the signal-caller back.
He has completed just 56.1% of his passes in the fourth quarter throughout his career, the worst in the NFL among quarterbacks with at least 200 fourth-quarter pass attempts over that span.
Mougey and the Jets are moving past those problems, though. Time will tell if they end up being right or if their attempts to get Fields to become a quality passer have failed.
Either way, New York will give him every possible chance to take control of the job for the future.
