New York Jets owner Woody Johnson believes in first-year head coach Aaron Glenn despite the miserable 0-7 start.
The same cannot be said about quarterback Justin Fields, who drew Johnson’s ire on Tuesday when he spoke at the NFL’s owners meetings in New York.
“It looks like [Glenn is] turning around parts of [the team],” Johnson said. “It’s hard when you have a quarterback with a rating that we’ve got. He has the ability, but something is just not jiving. But if you look at any head coach with a quarterback like that, you’re going to see similar results across the league…
“If we could just complete a pass, it would look good. You have to convince them that you can do something.”
The Fields experiment has been a disastrous one. Signed on a two-year contract and given the green light to run away with the franchise quarterback job, the former Bear and Steeler has floundered, completing 63.7% of his passes for 845 yards with four touchdowns and zero interceptions in six games.
While his dual-threat capabilities have shown flashes of promise, his pocket presence has been a liability. Fields has been sacked 22 times in those six games, with his last two outings providing stunning new lows.
After completing 9 of 17 passes for 45 yards with nine sacks in a Week 6 loss in London against the Denver Broncos, Fields went 6-for-12 for 46 yards with three sacks during the first half of Sunday’s 13-6 loss to the Carolina Panthers.
He was benched at halftime and replaced by Tyrod Taylor, though it did little to turn Gang Green’s fortunes around.
This is just the second time in franchise history that the Jets have started a season 0-7 or worse. They went 0-8 to start the 1996 season, in which they finished 1-15. In 2020, they went 0-13 under Adam Gase on their way to a 2-14 finish.
Johnson, however, is not putting much of the blame on Glenn despite his inability to find a way to win an abundance of close games. Five of the Jets’ seven losses this season have been by one possession.
“I do believe in Aaron,” Johnson said. “If I were a player, I’d respond to him because he’s the real deal. There’s no BS, there’s no agendas.”