“Justin’s on the roster,” Darren Mougey said last week at the combine, when asked about New York’s big 2025 signing, Justin Fields. Plainly said, the GM’s statement of fact might as well have been a kiss of death for the veteran QB, accompanied by zero suggestion that Fields is anything more than just one option under contract for the 2026 season. Fields is only the franchise’s immediate present, not its future. The Jets have a ton of needs — Garrett Wilson needs a WR2, the secondary needs warm bodies — but for the Mougey-Aaron Glenn regime to succeed (and survive), it needs competent play out of the QB position. Whether that’s found in free agency, where there figures to be a glut of at least average starters available, or the draft (New York has four picks in the first two rounds) is up to Mougey and Co. But after being held back by Fields, Tyrod Taylor, Brady Cook and OC Tanner Engstrand last season, pairing a new QB with new OC Frank Reich makes sense.
