How the Jets and Giants flip-flopped their quarterback situations with Justin Fields and Russell Wilson
Giants quarterback Russell Wilson, left, and Jets quarterback Justin Fields after their preseason game at MetLife Stadium on Aug. 16. Credit: Errol Anderson
One New York football team decided it needed to add a Super Bowl-winning veteran quarterback who is probably past his prime but still has some spark left in his arm and enough savvy at the line of scrimmage to overcome whatever limitations the years have levied against him. They brought him in, also, to improve the locker room culture, to show the young players how to act like a pro — like a winner, really — and lead the roster not only on the field but off it.
The other New York football team is betting it can win with a quiet young quarterback who doesn’t light up the room with his personality, isn’t that dynamic leader, hasn’t won a whole lot of games and can have trouble making the right reads from the pocket. But he is smart, displays solid character, is competitive and a hard-worker, and has plenty of athleticism as a runner and skills they believe can compensate for the other positional shortcomings.
Yes, these were the narratives heading into the 2023 season when the Jets had acquired Aaron Rodgers and the Giants had just signed Daniel Jones to a new contract.
How’d that work out?
Well enough that here we are, just two playoff-less years later, and the qualities that the two teams now desire from their new quarterbacks have completely flip-flopped. The pendulum has swung so far for both franchises in such a short period of time that they now find themselves clinging to the kind of hope they once (privately or otherwise) mocked the other one for indulging in.
Rodgers and Jones have been shipped out; they couldn’t make it here, to paraphrase Sinatra, but can they make it in Pittsburgh and Indianapolis? In their places are a pair of hand-me-downs from last year’s Steelers team that staggered into the playoffs and were swiftly eliminated without much noise.
So it’s the Giants with Russell Wilson who head into 2025 believing their new guy can rekindle some of his championship magic for them, be a role model in terms of attitude and attention to detail and get back to chucking those magical deep passes he is known for, the ones that come automatically scored by NFL Films. And it’s the Jets with Justin Fields who are convinced their cat with the sub-.500 winning record and just about as many career turnovers as touchdown passes has much more to offer than he has already shown through the first few years of his career.
Funny how these things change. Or maybe more sad than funny. We’ll find out soon enough.
Forget for a moment their playing styles, track records and leadership skills. They are just very different people, Wilson and Fields.
Wilson is overt and omnipresent, the kind of guy who since his arrival has popped up with a conspicuous seat at everything from Knicks playoff games to WWE’s SummerSlam, from the ESPYs to The Tonight Show. He has a glamorous star for a wife, a bunch of kids with whom he tosses the football around on the field after practices and then posts pics of it to the Gram, and is, for lack of a better term, a fully-formed brand.
The Giants have bought into that. Just as you can pretty much know what you will get when walking into any McDonald’s in the country, so too can the Giants be fairly assured of what they are in for with Wilson. So far his perpetual positivity and borderline corny rah-rahing have lived up to their billing.
“Leadership is a daily goal, task, thought, language, championship mentality,” Wilson preached this summer. “It's a daily thought, how you go about your business, how you think about it, how you communicate it. I think you're constantly putting your stamp on it. You're constantly putting the growth of it all together as one.”
That probably means something to somebody.
Fields, on the other hand, is quiet, soft-spoken, almost imperceptible. He goes about his business with confidence but also a calculated caution. He answers questions politely but tersely and rarely imbues them with his opinion. He’d just as soon remain out of the spotlight that is about to start beating down on him with more intensity than it has at any point of his still developing career. Has he even been to Manhattan yet? Nevermind about attending it and being a presenter there, did he even watch the ESPYs? Does he know what they are?
"He has a quiet voice, but that doesn't mean people don't hear him,” Jets coach Aaron Glenn said of Fields. “People see the way he works. That speaks more than what you say. And I like that about him because he's himself and he's authentic. He's not going to change for nobody, and I'd rather have that than somebody who is fake.”
Such as? Nevermind. Don’t say the name. We get the idea.
These, then, are the quarterbacks brought here to save New York’s floundering football scene.
To do that, first they each have to resurrect themselves.
Wilson is trying to become the latest late-30s quarterback to find success with a new team at the dusk of his career. Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Kurt Warner did that this century, but most of the others who tried to find successful second or third (or in this case fourth) acts couldn’t measure up to their glory days.
Fields is trying to become the latest given-up-on young quarterback to benefit from a change of scenery and take a few years to reach his potential. Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold and Geno Smith are in that club among current NFL starters. Ironic that two of them were former Jets draft picks and now it’s the Jets hoping to cash in on that same arrested development.
If either or (gulp) both of them can accomplish what their teams are asking of them, this may be a very entertaining NFL season in New York.
And if they can’t?
Well, Wilson is on a one-year contract and the Giants have flashy rookie Jaxson Dart ready to take his place as the starter if he stumbles this season. Fields is here on a two-year deal so there isn’t really a long-term commitment from the Jets for him. Not yet anyway.
There was a lot of excitement in 2023 about what the two New York quarterbacks were going to accomplish. That crashed pretty quickly. Perhaps the 2025 version of the story will have a better ending. Or maybe we’ll be right back here again in 2027 re-swapping what each team is looking for from its quarterback.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
