From the very start of the 2025 season, New York Jets head coach Aaron Glenn’s bravado and confidence in his ability showed a man who felt that he, and he alone, could turn around the franchise’s fortune.
To get his plans to “fix” the Jets started, New York’s coach signed Justin Fields in free agency to be the organization’s answer at the quarterback position. Despite fielding a 14-29 record going into the 2025 season, the Jets felt they could turn the former first-round pick’s career around.
Glenn’s confidence in himself and his coaches was such that they believed they could allow Fields to “play QB” and get the Jets on a winning path.
Through six games, that hasn’t happened. New York is the first team since the 2005 Houston Texans to start a year 0-6 and average under 150 passing yards per game. Sunday’s 13-11 loss to the Denver Broncos was more of the same.
Instead of blaming Fields’s struggles, it’s time to blame the one man who wanted him in the first place — the same guy who feels like he’s got all the answers to fixing the Jets for the future.
Fields’ limitations
After Week 1, it felt like Glenn’s faith in New York’s starting quarterback was well-placed. Fields helped the Jets score 32 points and was one of the most efficient quarterbacks of the opening week.
“Letting Fields play quarterback” had worked.
Since then, though, the Jets’ offense has been a mess. Fields has been at the center of that mess. While he has yet to throw an interception, the Jets have trailed by more than two scores in three of his last four starts. Indecisiveness, a long release, and questionable decision-making have all been calling cards of the quarterback during his run with the Jets.
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The issue is that Fields has struggled not just with New York. A former first-round pick out of Ohio State, Fields was given three years with the Chicago Bears and a year with the Pittsburgh Steelers to show improvements as a passer.
While his completion percentage has gotten better, other parts of his game are still a hindrance to his success. His lack of decisiveness was apparent in Sunday’s loss to Denver, which featured many receivers left untargeted.
In total, Fields went 9-for-17 passing for 45 yards. He was sacked nine times, with an average time to throw of over three seconds. The 55 yards lost by sacks meant that New York recorded -10 net passing yards on Sunday.
Negative 10 passing yards. In a modern 60-minute NFL game.
Inexcusable.
Glenn’s accountability
After the loss, Glenn acknowledged Fields didn’t perform up to his standard.
“Sometimes you got to give your guys a chance,” Glenn said. “When you have a team that pressures that much and played that much man coverage, sometimes you just got to give your guys a chance to win a one-on-one.”
Does that mean the team will be making a quarterback change? Not quite.
“C’mon, man, what kind of question is that?” Glenn exclaimed. “Sometimes this league is like there’s guys that have bad games. That doesn’t mean you just bench them.”
Accountability is something that Glenn has pushed for since the very beginning of his tenure. In some cases, he has shown accountability to the entire roster. Punt returner Xavier Gipson was released following a Week 1 fumble on a kick return that cost the team the game. Isaiah Williams was released six days after his own mistakes on special teams hurt New York’s chances in a Week 4 loss to the Miami Dolphins (although the team brought him back up to the active roster two weeks later).
Apparently, though, accountability runs up until you get to the starting quarterback.
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Fields has had two games this season in which he has failed to throw for over 50 yards. No other quarterback has done that more than once and remained the starting quarterback this year.
Even after all the mistakes made in Sunday’s loss, the Jets are going to roll with him at quarterback.
It’s a further reflection that New York’s struggles at the quarterback position don’t fall at the feet of Fields, but rather at Glenn as coach.
Arrogance leads to losses
Glenn’s swagger and confidence from the minute he walked into the building as head coach were staggering. Here was a former player who had never been a top coach before, but had plenty of experience and people coming to bat for his credentials.
Every short response to reporters, every passionate plea, was an emphasis of that very swagger. Fans gravitated to that kind of attitude because it spoke to a changing culture within Florham Park.
But as losses pile up, the same mistakes are being made, and the same short answers are being given — which can turn that swagger and confidence into arrogance and stubbornness.
Through six games, the Jets’ coaching staff looks more arrogant than put together in their first run. And nowhere is that arrogance felt more than at the quarterback position.
On Sunday, Fields played a poor game. He was a big reason why the team lost to a Broncos team that scored just 13 points overseas. But Glenn’s answer and pushback from reporters wondering if a quarterback change was coming shows the type of arrogance not normally seen from coaches with a pulse on what their team needs.
It was equivalent to Bill Belichick’s short answers during his final years in New England — a coach who had confidence in what he was doing, but no longer had the wins to back up the way he talked.
Fields was always a flawed passer. When he signed with the Jets, analysts and fans understood that the philosophy of the team would have to change from previous years.
But Glenn was confident he and his staff could turn the quarterback into something he was not. So confident, in fact, that he did not subject him to a position battle in camp.
Fields was given the keys to the kingdom before proving he was actually the right man for the job in the first place.
It’s not Fields’ fault that he proved to be exactly the kind of player he has always been known to be. It’s the coaching staff’s fault for thinking it could be done in the first place.
Glenn’s arrogance — to not be willing to make a change at quarterback or believe he could fix a flawed player in the first place — is a sign of pure stubbornness from the current staff.
Without the wins to follow, blame should no longer be focused on New York’s quarterback.
It should be on the coach who has acted as if he’s had all the answers in the first place.