Jets' quarterback change? Aaron Glenn 'evaluating everything'
The Jets' Justin Fields looks to pass against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium on Thursday in Foxborough, Mass. Credit: Getty Images/Jaiden Tripi
Aaron Glenn said he did not consider benching Justin Fields during Thursday night’s loss to New England. Glenn hoped his quarterback could rekindle “the magic” of the Jets’ first opening-drive touchdown of the season.
Glenn, however, didn’t rule out making a quarterback change when the Jets play Nov. 23 in Baltimore. He will spend the Jets’ mini-bye looking at everything that will help the team.
“I’m evaluating everything,” Glenn said on a Friday Zoom call. “I’m evaluating myself, the players, schematics, coaches, I’m evaluating everything. So I don’t want to just place everything on that one situation. I’m just looking at everything.
“As a head coach, that’s my job, to make sure that I put this team in the best position to go win games.”
The Jets are 2-8 and Fields is putting up some of the worst passing numbers in the league. He has thrown for 1,249 yards and seven touchdowns. They’re the least and second fewest, respectively, among players with nine starts.
Fields had 116 yards passing in the Jets’ 27-14 loss to the Patriots. It was only the second time in five games that he surpassed 54 yards.
“Not good enough,” Fields said. “We lost the game, so wasn’t good enough. Every time we lose, my performance isn’t good enough.”
Fields got the Jets off to a good start Thursday with their first opening-possession touchdown since Week 16 last year. That was a 72-yard drive, but the Jets totaled 25 yards of net offense in their next four series.
Glenn could have made the switch to Tyrod Taylor during that stretch with the Jets down only 14-7. He didn’t because he hoped Fields could duplicate that first series while the Jets were still running some scripted plays.
“At that point, I wasn’t [considering it] because I was hoping that we can try to get the magic back of what we had in that first drive,” Glenn said. “Which we should be able to do because we were still in our openers, to be honest with you. That’s what we have to do.
“We have to look at each drive as if it’s our openers, because if you just look at what we’ve done on a number of our openers, man, we’ve moved the ball quite a bit. We moved it well.”
Because of their substandard passing game, the Jets have to play almost a perfect defensive game to have a chance to win. Their defense was far from perfect Thursday, giving up six passes of at least 20 yards. The Jets trailed 21-7 midway through the third quarter, and it’s hard for them to come back without a passing attack.
“We got to get a lot better in the passing game,” Glenn said. “I don’t think that’s any surprise to anybody.”
Glenn repeated what he said after the game, that he felt Fields “did some good things” and that there were some throws he missed. There also were three drops in the game, two by newly acquired AD Mitchell. Glenn pointed out that the receivers need to make plays.
When Glenn removed Fields from the Week 7 loss to Carolina and put in Taylor, he said he was trying to create a spark. On Friday, he said that’s more of “a short-term” answer. He doesn’t necessarily want to do that.
“I’m trying to make the best decision to give our guys a chance to win because to me, a spark is really a short-term deal,” Glenn said. “I want to make the decision to give us a chance to win. Whatever that evaluation process comes out to, just know that the reason why I make decisions that I make is because it gives us the best chance to win.”
Glenn said this defeat was “really frustrating” because of how the Jets performed in their only stand-alone game.
“We had an opportunity to show the world exactly how we’ve grown as a team in all three phases,” he said. “Our execution wasn’t as high as I wanted it to be.”
Al Iannazzone covers the Jets for Newsday after spending nearly two decades on the NBA beat with Knicks and Nets.
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