The New York Jets’ roster is not built to win a championship just yet – and they know it.
New York’s new regime actively pursued young, affordable players in its first offseason at the helm, steering clear of splashy moves. Darren Mougey and Aaron Glenn did everything they could to distance themselves from the win-now moves of the Aaron Rodgers era.
Their focus was to preserve the franchise’s long-term flexibility, setting the foundation of something that could last. In the meantime, this approach leaves the roster with a plethora of short-term question marks. The Jets are counting on unproven players to fill many critical roles.
If the Jets are going to be a playoff-caliber team in 2025, they need their coaching staff to concoct unique methods of working around various talent deficiencies on the roster.
Here is how they could pull that off at two depleted offensive positions.
1. Quarterback
Even if you are the most optimistic Justin Fields supporter in the land, it is impossible to deny that Fields is a liability at the quarterback position compared to the league’s other 31 starters.
Although he has every physical trait you could want in a quarterback, Fields has been extremely limited as a passer in the NFL. In 44 career starts, this is how often he has hit the following benchmarks:
- 200+ passing yards: 15 times (34% of starts)
- 250+ passing yards: 7 times (16%)
- 300+ passing yards: 2 times (5%)
- 2+ passing touchdowns: 9 times (20%)
- More passing touchdowns than interceptions: 17 times (39%)
- 90+ passer rating: 18 times (41%)
- 100+ passer rating: 8 times (18%)
- Team scored 25+ points: 13 times (30%)
- Team scored 30+ points: 7 times (16%)
Fields has hit 200 passing yards in about one-third of his starts. He’s hit 300 passing yards only twice. There is just a one-in-five chance of him throwing multiple passing touchdowns, and far more often than not, he fails to throw more touchdowns than interceptions. His chances of reaching a 90.0 passer rating (approximately league-average) are a measly two-in-five, and his odds of hitting the 100.0 mark (very good) are less than one-in-five.
Yes, Fields makes up for some of this with his elite rushing ability, but the fact of the matter is that rushing at the quarterback position cannot win games on its own. Although mobile quarterbacks are becoming commonplace, passing is still what puts quarterbacks – and their teams – over the top. This is why Fields has only led his team to 30+ points in 16% of his starts.
The mobile quarterbacks who have become NFL stars can only do it because they are also elite passers. Fellow top-tier rushers like Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, and Jayden Daniels are lightyears ahead of Fields as passers until proven otherwise.
Fields could run for well over 1,000 yards in 2025, like he did for the Bears in 2022, but it won’t win games for the Jets unless he complements it with efficient passing. And, no, that does not mean he must load up on high-volume passing yardage and passing touchdown totals. Those are not the stats that matter from the bulleted list above. What really matters is his efficiency – metrics like passer rating and yards per attempt.
This is where the Jets need to follow the Jalen Hurts model.
As passers, Hurts and Fields were similarly inefficient over their first two NFL seasons, as we broke down earlier in the offseason. Since then, though, the Eagles have unlocked an efficient version of Hurts’ arm, while Fields’ development has stagnated.
Although Hurts has improved, Philadelphia still does not rely on Hurts’ arm to carry the team. In 2024, the Eagles ranked 32nd in the NFL with just 26.4 pass attempts per game. But Hurts made his pass attempts count, as he finished fourth in yards per attempt (8.0) and fifth in passer rating (103.7). Meanwhile, his legs were the backbone of his impact, as he ran for 630 yards and 14 touchdowns.
The Jets must build their offense around Fields’ rushing talents. The goal is for him to match or exceed his otherworldly 1,143 yards and eight touchdowns on just 160 carries for Chicago in 2022. This is his best trait, and the Jets must maximize it to win games behind him.
But it cannot be his only trait.
Off the threat of Fields’ elite rushing, the Jets must find ways to set him up for high passing efficiency on a low volume, just like Philadelphia does with Hurts.
Play action is a great way to do this. The Jets can confuse defenses by presenting numerous possibilities out of read-option and RPO looks with Fields in the gun. From there, if Fields pulls the ball for a pass, defenses will already be a step behind, giving Fields some easy chances to make a simple read and fire.
Jets offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand comes from a Lions offense that had Jared Goff throw out of play action on a league-high 37% of his dropbacks in 2024. They should aim for a similar rate with Fields. It would be a different type of play action – Goff often works under center and is a non-rushing threat – but the idea is the same: using the threat of a strong run game to open up favorable windows through the air.
Pittsburgh’s offense asked Fields to focus on checking the ball down in 2024, but in Chicago, we saw glimpses of Fields’ explosive potential as a play action passer. In 2023, Fields went 55-of-90 (61.1%) for 800 yards (8.9 per attempt), three touchdowns, and no interceptions when using play action – a passer rating of 101.2.
Notably, the Bears only called play action on 25.8% of his dropbacks in 2023, which gives Engstrand plenty of room to spike that rate to new heights in 2025. The more we see of Fields in play action, the more efficient his overall passing numbers should be.
New York’s goal with Fields should not be to make him into something he’s not. He is a playmaker first and foremost, and they must build around that by implementing concepts to unlock his legs. This should be the Jets’ bread-and-butter. It is wildly optimistic to believe that Fields will suddenly be capable of micromanaging an offense at the caliber of someone like Goff.
Behind his legs, though, the Jets must find ways to get the most out of Fields’ relatively few passing attempts, or else his gaudy rushing stats won’t amount to many points on the scoreboard. Heavy reliance on play action is a fantastic option to accomplish that goal.
2. Wide receiver
At the moment, Josh Reynolds is currently favored to be the Jets’ No. 2 wide receiver behind Garrett Wilson. On most NFL teams, Reynolds would be the No. 3 wide receiver, at best.
It isn’t an ideal situation, but it also isn’t impossible to work around. Engstrand comes from a team that made things work with a similar setup.
Reynolds was the Lions’ No. 2 wide receiver in the 2023 season, when Detroit won 12 games and ranked fifth in the NFL in scoring. These were their top targets that season:
- WR Amon-Ra St. Brown (164 targets)
- TE Sam LaPorta (120)
- RB Jahmyr Gibbs (71)
- WR Josh Reynolds (64)
- WR Kalif Raymond (44)
- WR Jameson Williams (42)
- RB David Montgomery (24)
While Reynolds was the Lions’ No. 2 wide receiver, he was actually the No. 4 target overall. Behind a superstar target-magnet in Amon-Ra St. Brown, the No. 2 overall target was tight end Sam LaPorta, while running back Jahmyr Gibbs slid in as a distant No. 3.
The Jets are equipped to replicate this model. LaPorta was a second-round rookie for Detroit that year. New York has a talented second-round rookie tight end of its own in Mason Taylor, whose NFL-ready receiving skills jump off the tape. With soft hands that should allow him to limit his drop count on a large target volume, Taylor is capable of filling the LaPorta role.
For the No. 3 spot, the Jets have a talented receiving back in Breece Hall who can match Gibbs’ speed and breakaway potential. Hall has accumulated 133 receptions for 1,074 yards and seven touchdowns over the past two seasons.
Then, Reynolds can comfortably slide into the No. 4 role that he played so well for Detroit in 2023. With just 64 targets, Reynolds produced 40 receptions for 608 yards and five touchdowns.
In Wilson, Taylor, and Hall, the Jets have the pieces to replicate Detroit’s top trio. This will allow New York to generate high efficiency out of the lower spots on the depth chart. With one star at each position to handle a high volume of targets, the complementary players can slide into niche roles that suit their skill sets, allowing them to make the most of each target they receive.
This is a sneaky reason why Detroit’s offense is so effective. In 2023, their second through fourth wide receivers – Reynolds, Kalif Raymond, and Jameson Williams – combined for 1,451 yards and eight touchdowns on 150 targets. That is comparable to the 1,515 yards and 10 touchdowns that St. Brown had on 164 targets.
While many NFL teams strive to form a superstar one-two punch at wide receiver, the 2023 Lions displayed an alternative route to elite offense: creating a superstar WR2 in the aggregate.
It is only attainable if you have a top-tier target magnet in the WR1 spot to attract attention and open up space for his teammates, and the Jets have that in Wilson, who has drawn 322 targets over the past two seasons (161 per year). Behind him, the Jets can put the rest of their receivers in positions to maximize their strengths, just as Detroit did behind St. Brown.
Raymond and Williams were limited players, but with small roles where they could focus on what they do best, they were each incredibly efficient. Raymond had 489 yards on just 44 targets, while Williams had 354 yards and two touchdowns on 42 targets.
Williams had a limited all-around game but elite long speed, while Raymond was a speedster in his own right whose ceiling was capped by a tiny 5-foot-8 frame. So, capitalizing on the space afforded by their top weapons, the Lions put those two athletes in spots where they could just be their speedy selves, and it paid dividends.
The Jets have wide receivers who are equipped to fill these same roles. Malachi Corley, like Raymond, is an undersized receiver whose all-around ceiling might be limited, but he is certainly an athletic playmaker who can cover ground and make plays with the ball in his hands. Arian Smith, like Williams, has elite vertical speed but needs to round out the finer points of his game.
New York’s weaponry can be plenty effective if utilized properly. Luckily, their offensive coordinator played a firsthand role in the optimization of an extremely similar depth chart just two years ago. Engstrand will attempt to make the same recipe work with a comparable plate of ingredients in 2025.