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Justin Fields is a different flavor of ice cream than we are used to around here.
We haven’t seen this approach around here in a while – a running QB of this magnitude, who isn’t going to run occasionally, but a lot.
Yes, quarterbacks like Mark Sanchez, Sam Darnold, and Zach Wilson would scramble occasionally, but nothing like we are about to see.
Fields, who runs 4.5, can hurt you with his legs as much as his arm, and the Jets intend on taking advantage of it this season, early and often.
“When your quarterback can run, and you don’t want to do it all the time because you don’t want to get him killed, it allows you to play 11 on 11 football,” said passing game coordinator Scott Turner.
And Turner added: “You don’t see it with every team.”
You see it a lot more in college.
But can you win in the NFL with his approach?
“The bottom line is that I believe the one thing is that you’ve got to be able to win from the pocket,” former Denver Broncos QB and GM John Elway said in 2018. “No matter what you do, I think the one thing that I’ve learned is as a quarterback you’ve got to be able to win it from the pocket. You can win games but you can’t win championships unless you have the ability to win it from the pocket. Then if you can get out and move around and create, and do those types of things, then that’s an added bonus.”
I used to 100 percent agree with this theory, but I’ve changed my attitude a little over the last couple of years.
Because quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Joe Burrow, who are full field readers and great at progressions, are so hard to find these days, you’ve got to find other ways of functioning at the position.
Most of these college quarterbacks come out of heavy read-option systems, and so many are one-read and run quarterbacks, so some teams are just going to have to make due with guys with limited field vision, and will have to run a lot of the run-pass option trickery, or run the ball well, to set up easy passes in play-action and bootleg throws.
Manufacture production, as they say.
And you could argue the last Super Bowl winner, Philadelphia, won with this approach.
Jalen Hurts isn’t a full-field reader.
Last year, the Washington Commanders went 12-5 with rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels running 148 times.
They ran a ton of read-option.
The Jets need to go with the Commanders’ approach – run Fields a ton.
They have no choice.
True, as Turner said, “you don’t want to do it all the time because you don’t want to get him killed,” but they need to throw caution to the wind, do what the Commanders did. Running in the vicinity of 148 times isn’t out of the question.
There is no Tom Brady tree farm where they are growing quarterbacks who are elite processors.
So some teams need to try to win with a different approach.
And considering what Philadelphia and Washington did last year, you can certainly win games with this approach in 2025.
June 24, 2025
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