How Jets coaches are reading Justin Fields' mind, while Fields is winning over teammates' hearts

New York Times

5 hours ago

In the early days, cameras would track his every move on the practice fields. Reporters were flying in from all over the country to watch him throw passes in shorts. Parking at the facility was impossible, and cameramen mostly overtook the Jets' small press conference room. Florham Park, N.J., tucked 30 miles away (or, over an hour of travel time in traffic) from New York City, turned into a travel destination for national NFL media. It got busiest when HBO's 'Hard Knocks' cameras followed the team around during their 2023 training camp — though they mostly followed Aaron Rodgers.
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The Rodgers Circus has since left town, moving 350 miles away to Pittsburgh. In his wake, Florham Park is a lot less crowded. The cameramen are mostly from local outlets. The reporters too. The remaining cameras are still following the quarterback, mostly. The only one tracking his every move is sitting on top of his helmet, a GoPro the Jets have incorporated into their practices to better understand Justin Fields — the how and the why of what he does at the line of scrimmage and as a play progresses.
The way Fields operates in between those moments is a lot quieter than what the Jets are used to. That's exactly what Aaron Glenn wants out of his quarterback — and why he was their No. 1 target when they (quickly) decided Rodgers wasn't going to be a fit for their new program.
'He's not trying to be the celebrity quarterback, he's just trying to be himself,' Glenn said, referencing an adage made famous by his mentor Bill Parcells. 'And whatever comes with that, it comes with it. So, he's not trying to impress anybody. He's going out there and he's busting his a– trying to be the best quarterback he can be for this team. Everybody sees that — and I like that.'
Expectations are low for the Jets — as low as they've been since the beginning of the Robert Saleh era. This is a team coming off a disastrous 5-12 season full of drama, dysfunction and a quarterback with a proclivity for distraction. Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey gutted the roster in favor of a youth movement. The focus now is on culture, accountability and fundamentals.
Any dreams the Jets have of improving in 2025, of getting back on the right track, starts with their quarterback. This new regime is banking on a talented-but-flawed quarterback who was drafted highly, struggled as a passer in Chicago, was traded to Pittsburgh for peanuts then benched with a winning record, and then hit free agency with a lot to prove. The Jets paid him $40 million over two years and are building their offense around his skillset. Their approach this offseason in free agency and the NFL Draft was derived from cultivating the best possible environment around Fields to help him succeed, to get him on a similar track to other highly drafted players who turned things around after being discarded multiple times — Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Geno Smith and the like.
The Jets are pulling out all the stops to help Fields. They need this to work.
Much of the criticism of Fields as a passer, dating back to his days with the Bears, centers around his accuracy and his processing at the line of scrimmage. Anonymous reports toward the end of his tenure in Chicago painted the picture of a quarterback who would look everywhere at the line of scrimmage but see nothing — his inner-processing was failing him. There were flashes of the talent that made him a first-round pick in 2021, but he completed only 60.3 percent of his passes in Chicago and threw 30 interceptions in 40 games.
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Since the Jets signed Fields, Glenn has repeatedly alluded to the idea that Fields, in his past stops, was not put in an environment that actually let him play quarterback — as in, throwing the ball and making plays with his arm as much as with his legs. It's an important distinction for a player who has been one of the better running quarterbacks the NFL has ever seen.
The Jets are going to run the ball a lot, and Fields will be a part of that — but it won't be his primary role. Glenn brought offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand with him from Detroit, where Engstrand was a crucial part of the creative Lions offense, one of the highest-scoring and most explosive in the NFL. That was an offense built around the efficiency of Jared Goff, surrounding him with explosive and productive weapons — a group that the Jets are trying to replicate, in a way, in New York. The idea: Use Breece Hall and Braelon Allen as a pseudo-Jahmyr Gibbs-David Montgomery duo at running back. The Jets drafted tight end Mason Taylor, offensive tackle Armand Membou and wide receiver Arian Smith, and Glenn couldn't help but compare them to Sam LaPorta, Penei Sewell and Jameson Williams. The Jets signed Josh Reynolds to be the No. 2 wide receiver – he was productive for the Lions over two seasons (2022-23).
But the Jets need Fields to complete the puzzle. The No. 1 goal this spring was to get him comfortable with the offense, the schemes, the routes, the progressions — everything he needs to play fast, use his legs and make the right decisions. That's where the GoPro cameras come in. All four of the quarterbacks wore them this spring and it wouldn't be surprising if that continued into training camp.
'It's awesome. I'm just telling you, I can't believe we didn't do this before,' Engstrand said. 'It is unbelievable. We can hear him call the play in the huddle. We can hear him at the line of scrimmage, making his check, whatever it needs, so you can see his eyes, where he's going, and then you can see him go through the progression. You can see everything from his vantage point.'
It's the closest the coaching staff can get to actually reading Fields' mind in the moment. Engstrand and Glenn had used them previously in Detroit a couple years ago, and quarterbacks coach Charles London had experience using GoPro cameras as a tool too. They tested it out during rookie minicamp — and loved it.
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After each practice, Engstrand and London are able to sit with Fields and go through each play to see what Fields did, where he was looking, and how and why he made decisions on certain passing plays. It's also been useful in offering a different perspective to show other position groups too, Engstrand said, because they can hear everything including the calls Fields is making.
'It's, what's your pre-snap process?' Engstrand said. 'You break the huddle, what are you looking at? What are we keying? Are we looking in the right areas? What's the concept? If it's a pass play, am I looking in the right spot? There's all sorts of things to talk about with that.'
Said Fields: 'It's kind of cool. It's my first time ever doing it, but it's definitely cool, just basically hearing the play call again and kind of just going through making sure you're just doing everything within the process of the play. I like the GoPro a lot.'
It's only OTAs and minicamp, where Fields can't be touched and there isn't tackling, but he showed progress throughout the spring. If he was holding onto the ball too long at the start of OTAs, he was making quicker decisions by the end of minicamp. He's thrown dimes, like a 50-yard bomb to Garrett Wilson followed by a throw in the back of the end zone to Reynolds with pinpoint accuracy. But Glenn has been more impressed by some of the throws Fields didn't make, like on the first day of minicamp when he rolled out of the pocket, saw nobody was open and just threw it away rather than forcing it.
'No negative plays,' Glenn said.
Fields is putting in the work.
'The biggest takeaway I would say is that this guy is just a workaholic,' Engstrand said. 'He comes in early, he's here late, and he's trying to digest everything and download all the information and do things the right way. He's trying to do things that we're asking, and I think he's really put the next foot forward every day, just trying to stack days, and it's been really good.'
The person who is most excited about Fields' arrival had no idea it was even a possibility until it happened.
'A big smile goes on your face,' said Garrett Wilson.
Wilson and Fields were teammates at Ohio State but fell out of touch when Fields got to the NFL. From afar, Wilson kept track of one of his favorite quarterbacks. He was bewildered when Fields fell all the way to No. 11 in the 2021 draft. He'd watch film from Fields' Bears days and wonder why receivers weren't making plays when they should have been.
By the end of last season, Wilson and Rodgers weren't exactly the best of friends. A relationship that started with promise ended with each taking subtle shots at each other in press conferences. Privately, Rodgers complained about Wilson's tendency to freelance on routes, and there was frustration from Wilson – and others — about how Rodgers was funneling targets to Davante Adams, shying away from running the ball and ignoring Wilson in the red zone.
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Glenn, Fields and anyone in the Jets organization will tell you: That won't happen in 2025. The Jets will run the ball more often this season, maybe more often than any team in the NFL, and Wilson will be getting plenty of targets, in every situation. It helps that Wilson and Fields — who speak every day and often hang out away from the facility — are so close.
'I'll just say that, he trusts me, I trust him, we've got a good communication, we speak to each other well, we know what the other is thinking and that's key,' Wilson said. 'Him being able to say: 'Garrett, I don't want you running like that, that was the wrong route.' Stuff like that in a certain way where he knows I'm not going to take it the wrong way and we're just trying to get the best out of each other. I know what he can do. I still think the world's gotta see it. We all got something to prove on this team.'
Added Fields: ''G' has been my guy for a long time now, so I really feel like we haven't skipped a beat.'
Fields had won over Wilson before he ever stepped foot in Florham Park. But Fields' approach is winning him fans all over the locker room. His leadership style might not be as obvious or forthcoming as it was with Rodgers, but Wilson pushes back on the idea that Fields is not vocal.
'He's real cool, calm and collected and brings another sense of calm to the offense and just seeing how he works and how diligent he is and how he cares,' Hall said. 'He's trying to build relationships with everybody and how he goes about his business has been fun so far. He's young like us so we talk about a lot of the same stuff, we hang out on the weekends and he's just been cool to be around.'
Tight end Jeremy Ruckert, who played with him at Ohio State too, appreciates his calmness. 'Nothing is going to rattle him,' Ruckert said. 'He's built for this team and this area, he wants the pressure. He's built for it. The attitude he brings and the professionalism he has, he's shown it since college. He'll continue to do that and we'll rally around him.'
Added safety Tony Adams: 'Guys want to fight for him. Those guys want to go to war for him. He's laid back but you can tell he's confident in himself, confident in his abilities.
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Off the field, Fields has made an effort to spend time with his teammates on both sides of the ball. He went to a golf simulator with offensive linemen and tight ends. He went to a crab boil with teammates one weekend, a get-together at Allen Lazard's place another week and has hung out with linebacker Jamien Sherwood and other defensive players away from the facility too. In this long part of the offseason, he plans on getting some of his offensive weapons together to workout ahead of training camp.
'Guys keep coming up to me saying: Man, that's my guy,' Wilson said. 'He's got a different way about him. It's very commanding in the huddle. Like: Hey, we're messing up. Let's get on that s—. But you get it from the standpoint of, he's not degrading anybody, he's not going to put it a certain way.'
Said Glenn: 'Yes, he has a quiet voice, but that quiet voice doesn't mean that people don't hear him. People see the way he works, that speaks more than what you say, and I like that about him because he is himself and he's authentic, and he's not going to change for nobody. I'd rather have that than somebody that's fake.'