The Jets rolled the dice when they Justin Fields in free agency. And they weren’t just betting on Fields to finally put it all together after four years of failing to prove himself as a viable NFL starter. Coach Aaron Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey were betting on themselves in the hope that they could surround him with the support he needed to finally get the most out of his talented arm and elite scrambling ability.
Well, it didn’t even take the first nine starts of Fields’ Jets career to know that the bet had come up bust. The Jets’ owner told the world it was a failure after just six weeks. And Fields likely would have been benched less than a month ago before leading the Jets to an improbable win over the Bengals, had backup Tyrod Taylor not been ruled out of that game with a knee injury.
And this week, the Jets are reportedly set to finally bench Fields for Taylor after yet another underwhelming performance – since his promising Jets debut in Week 1, Fields has thrown for fewer than 120 yards in five of eight starts. And in his last five starts he has averaged just 101 passing yards per game while completing just 58.2 of his passes and throwing three touchdowns.
Fields has played poorly enough that Fields anyone making the case for Fields having a long-term future with the Jets cannot be taken seriously. Fields has been so ineffective and inconsistent that even though it would benefit the Jets to lose the rest of the games they play this season by helping their draft position, it’s untenable to keep playing Fields because his wild inconstancy is hurting the development of the team’s young weapons and potentially the progression of first-year offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand.
Luckily, Mougey and Glenn hedged their bet on Fields and themselves. If Fields doesn’t play another down for the Jets it won’t cripple them.
But cutting him immediately makes no sense, especially with Brady Cook – who has never played a NFL snap – as the only other quarterback in the building. Even if the Jets make Cook the backup, the Jets are paying Fields – and he’s unlikely to be a locker room problem in the wake of his demotion – so he’s sticking around. And with seven games remaining and Taylor’s injury troubles this year and injury history, it seems more likely than not that Fields has not seen his last action in a Jets uniform this year.
But what about after the season?
If they cut him outright, they’ll clear $1 million in cap space for 2026, but it would throw another $22 million on their dead cap charge for 2026. That would, remarkably, climb over $90 million with Aaron Rodgers ($35 million), Sauce Gardner ($11 million), Quinnen Williams ($9.8 million) C.J. Mosley ($6.7 million) and Michael Carter II ($6.8 million) all carrying significant cap charges after their respective departures.
But it would also bring them to $100 million in cap space, which is fourth among all NFL teams in 2026 – more than enough to restock with talent in free agency and the draft this fall.
The other option is cutting Fields with a post-June 1 designation after the season, which would save them $10 million in 2026 (which would give them the most cap space in the NFL, per Over the Cap) an throw the additional $9 million onto the 2027 season.
The Jets could have eaten Rodgers’ contract entirely in 2025, but chose to spin it a year forward so the post-June 1 cut seems like the most likely outcome.
There is one last option: Fields staying on as the backup. But with Fields set to make $20 million in base salary next year and only $10 million guaranteed, the Jets would probably be seeking to restructure the deal to cut his pay – it would be hard to blame Fields if he was interested in a different landing spot after taking his guaranteed money, and hard to blame the Jets for wanting a backup with less baggage.
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