New York Jets head coach Aaron Glenn is not committing to Justin Fields as his starting quarterback when they come out of the Week 9 bye despite his efforts leading a remarkable comeback win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday — Gang Green’s first victory under their new head coach.
“This is the bye week. We’re going to focus on us,” Glenn said on Monday. “I have time to make that decision… This gives us a chance to hone in on the good, bad, and ugly, and try to get those things worked out.”
Fields managed to overcome a trying week in which he was benched at halftime of the Jets’ Week 7 loss to the Carolina Panthers and then called out by team owner Woody Johnson. But Tyrod Taylor’s ankle injury ensured that Fields got one more chance to run with the starting job, and he made the most of it.
The Jets erased four separate 14-plus-point deficits, including a two-touchdown hole with 10:21 left in the fourth quarter, to stun the Bengals in a 39-38 victory. Fields had his best game yet as a Jet, throwing for 244 yards and a touchdown while rushing for an additional 31.
“I’m so impressed by how mature he is,” defensive tackle Harrison Phillips said on Monday. “You could tell [the last week] weighed on him, but it didn’t let it waver his faith in himself and what he believes he can do for this team… Back against the wall, and that’s what you do? That’s somebody I want to play with. There’s a reason there’s a [captain’s] ‘C’ on his chest.”
It is not clear yet, though, if it was enough for him to save his job as New York’s starter. The general consensus was that Taylor was going to get the start if he was healthy, and that reality still very much exists as they have two weeks to prepare for a Week 9 matchup at MetLife Stadium against the Cleveland Browns.
But what the 26-year-old was able to do with Sunday’s heroics was tighten this hypothetical competition between him and Fields, and perhaps give Glenn even more to think about after watching him navigate what must have been one of his more trying weeks as a professional.
“There are so many levels to things that he goes through as a person and as a player that sometimes, we look at athletes at this magnitude that they’re not human, they’re robots,” Glenn said. “There are so many things that are attacked at so many levels in these guys. They’re humans, they have feelings, they go through things. But man, we create these storms for these players that some people have no idea what they go through. They’re just like me, they’re just like you, they’re just like anybody else. They have feelings, they go through things. It just so happens that he’s such a strong-willed person that he’s built to handle things like that. I’m proud of him. I’m not shocked. And I expect him to continue living his life like that.”
