The Jets’ offense started Thursday night’s game with a brilliant 14-play, 72-yard drive that ended with a Justin Fields five-yard touchdown run. On that first drive, Fields ran the ball five times and threw the ball twice, and the Jets’ offense was humming.
So did the Jets keep having Fields run the rest of the game? No.
The Jets’ remaining three drives of the first half were all three-and-outs, and Fields didn’t have a single rushing attempt for the rest of the half. All three of those three-and-out drives ended with Fields throwing the ball on third down and failing to get the first down. But Jets head coach Aaron Glenn defended the play calling after the game, saying Fields is not a running back and can’t be treated like one.
“We don’t want to make a habit of our quarterbacks continuing to run because we can put them in harm’s way,” Glenn said. “I felt like if we get a fast start we’ll be in a good position, and Justin ran the ball quite a bit. The thing is, we can’t put Justin in a situation where he’s a running back, and I think we all know that, because we’re putting him in harm’s way.”
After that great opening drive on which Fields ran the ball five times and threw the ball twice, he ran the ball six times and threw the ball 24 times the rest of the game. Glenn said he would have liked to see his receivers do a better job catching Fields’ passes.
“We’ve got to have some guys make some plays for him too,” Glenn said.
But the reality is that whether you blame Fields or the receivers for the struggles of the passing game, the Jets’ offense was moving better when Fields was running: Fields ran 11 times for 67 yards, an average of 6.1 yards per run. Fields also passed the ball 26 times for 116 yards, and was sacked twice for 11 yards, a net of 105 yards on 28 dropbacks, or 3.8 yards per attempted pass.
The Jets were better with Fields running more than passing, but Glenn made clear that Fields running more than passing is not part of the Jets’ future plans.