Former Steelers QB Justin Fields signs with the New York Jets
As the NFL’s new league year began, it started with news of the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Jets both trying their best to re-sign quarterback Justin Fields to a new contract. With other quarterbacks off the market, the reports of Fields having to choose between the two AFC teams became clear.
Then in the early afternoon Fields made his choose, choosing to play for the New York Jets.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Fields’ deal with the Jets will be a 2-year deal worth $40 million dollars, $30 million of that being guaranteed money.
Whether the Steelers chose to not match the deal, or Fields liked the Jets overall situation better, is not unknown. However, Fields is on the move, and Pittsburgh is still left without a quarterback.
As for what the Steelers are missing in Fields, here is what he was able to accomplish last season with the Steelers in his six starts at the starting quarterback.
Fields started the first six games of the season for the Steelers in 2024 with the team went 4–2. He completed 106 passes of 161 attempts in the 10 games in which he appeared for 1106 yards and five passing touchdowns. Fields also added 289 rushing yards on 62 attempts and another five rushing touchdowns. Fields also saw his lowest interception percentage of his career by a large margin with the Steelers at 0.6% of his passes as he only had one interception. For his career, Fields has a 2.8% interception percentage and a 14–30 record as a starter according to Pro Football Reference.
What’s the Steelers next move? Be sure to stay tuned to SCN for the latest news and notes surrounding the team as they prepare for the rest of free agency and the 2025 NFL Draft.
Bummer. Good luck Justin, you’re gonna need it.
Love his work ethic and character. Hope the best for him. Wish they could’ve kept him.
Whelp. Back to the drawing board we go. I will retain my stance that, although I don’t think that Justin Fields is a viable franchise QB, I do believe that he was best for the Steelers right here and right now. Unfortunately, it’s looking like an old guy will be playing QB for the Steelers next year.
More and more, I am under the belief that the Steelers need to draft a QB this year. Perhaps not in round 1, although if Shedeur Sanders drops like some expect I would snatch him up even if it took a trade up to do it. Jaxon Dart, Will Howard, whoever. They need to get someone on the roster who at least has a chance to develop, even if that chance is small.
Bringing it back to Fields, the dude has some cajones to take a pass on the Steelers to play for Jets. I have to think that the Steelers would have matched the Jets’ offer. It’s conjecture, of course, but it makes me wonder if Fields was a little more put off by getting benched for Russell Wilson then he let on.
I’m pretty bummed by this. I don’t really think Fields was the long-term future starter to lead the team to number 7, but there’s a lot to like about him, and I’d rather keep him over Russel. Russel didn’t show anything to make me believe he should be brought back. He was rather inconsistent with poor pocket presence. But what it comes down to is, there really isn’t any QB options available that I would feel really good about.
Fields was swept up by NY for 20M a year, Darnold going to Seattle. The 2 most likely candidates are Russel Wilson and Aaron Rodgers. I’m pretty put off by both of them. I think both cases you wind up overpaying a past their prime, aging vet. I think there’s chemistry issues with both of them as well. A lot of rumors about Russ not getting along great with the OC and not really meshing with the locker room. I can see him being the kind of guy that, even though you don’t really have anything against him, he’s just kind of annoying and you don’t really like him.
I’ve always thought Aaron Rodgers was kind of a DB (not a Defensive Back) and a diva, but he was so good, it was worth putting up with. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I’m just not very excited about our QB prospects for this season.
He got a good pay day so can’t really fault him. The Steelers can’t have felt overly determined to bring him back otherwise they would have paid the 40 million. In any case It’s time to turn the attention to Aaron Rodgers it seems
It’s possible that the Steelers did offer Justin Fields that the Jets did and that Fields simply chose to play in New York. I mean, the Steelers did kind of screw of him over last year, at least in his mind.
Uugggghhh!! Please, please not Aaron Rodgers.
At this point, it looks like the Steelers have trashed any semblance of a strategic plan. Last offseason, they let go of a young, first-round QB to sign two veterans — and the thinking then was that, if Wilson didn’t pan out (which obviously he didn’t), Fields was young and talented enough to perhaps still develop into a keeper. But after an experiment that lasted only one season, the team apparently is again tossing everything out of the window.
This suggests the Steelers might be planning to sign another veteran QB to a short-term deal and perhaps also make a major deal to trade up in the Draft to pick another QB with potential to become their next franchise guy.
As I suggested previously, they might also make a deal with Tampa Bay to acquire Michael Pratt, who’s currently projected to be the Bucs’ No. 3 QB during the 2025 regular season. Obviously, as long as Mayfield stays healthy, Pratt will spend the 2025 regular season holding a tablet on the sidelines, with little or no chance to play. That’s truly a shame because he’s one player who appears to have potential to become a great NFL quarterback.
In any case, the current scenario makes the Steelers look like they haven’t got any real plan for solving the team’s biggest issue.
It hindsight (which I admit isn’t fair) the Steelers essentially writing off Kenny Pickett after 16 games was probably a bad move. The plan back then should have been to bring in a vet that wasn’t such a threat to supplant Pickett as the starter and causing his trade request. Yeah, Pickett still probably wouldn’t have worked out but this past year’s record wasn’t any better with Fields / Wilson that it was with Pickett / Rudolph. They might have been better off rolling with the young guy and hoping for the best. In the end, that’s what the plan was for Justin Fields had he chosen to stay anyway. Now they have no young guys whatsoever.
More and more I am hoping that the Steelers take a QB in the first couple of rounds of this year’s draft. The land of cast-off QBs isn’t a good one. They need to find a young QB and the draft is the only place to do it. Is that risky? Sure it is. Do it anyway.
I think it’s time to climb aboard the Skylar Thompson bandwagon now….