Justin Fields toe injury: What are Jets’ options at quarterback if the issue is serious?

The New York Jets got some bad news early in training camp as starting quarterback Justin Fields limped off the field Thursday and then was carted back to the locker room. Once practice ended, coach Aaron Glenn told reporters that Fields had suffered a right toe injury of as yet unknown severity, and that he believed the quarterback had gotten stepped on during a play. 

According to NFL Media, Fields suffered a dislocated toe that contains no fracture, and it was not his big toe. The Jets have yet to confirm that diagnosis, but if it’s accurate, then Fields can probably be back on the field within a few weeks unless he ends up needing surgery. Even in the worst-case scenario that he does have a fracture, those generally heal within 4-6 weeks unless they need surgery, and that could mean Fields gets back into the lineup late in training camp or early in the regular season.

If the injury is more serious, though, the Jets may have some work to do because they have one of the league’s thinnest quarterback rooms. Let’s walk through their options if Fields indeed has to miss significant time.

In-house options

Fields’ expected backup is Tyrod Taylor. He’s soon to be 36 years old, and we basically know what we’re getting out of Taylor at this stage of his career: low-risk, low-reward passing and enough mobility to keep the offense on schedule. Taylor has always taken care of the ball when asked to step into the lineup, but he’s also rarely shown the willingness to put the ball up in the air or into dangerous areas often enough to create explosive plays. He hasn’t been a regular starter since 2017, and in the 36 appearances and 15 starts he’s made since then, he’s completed just 60.7% of his passes at an average of 6.6 yards per attempt. He’s the type of quarterback that won’t totally undermine your offense but probably won’t elevate it, either. 

New York’s other backups are Adrian Martinez and Brady Cook. If you haven’t heard of them, you’re probably not alone. For that reason, if Fields does have to miss a bunch of time with the injury, it seems highly likely that the Jets would explore bringing in someone from outside the organization.

Veteran free agents

The options available to the Jets on the free agent market at the moment aren’t particularly inspiring. Teddy Bridgewater is still out there, but he’s also coaching high school football at his alma mater (albeit while under investigation for providing impermissible benefits, a charge from which his players have asked the board to reinstate him) and hasn’t thrown a pass since 2022 or been a regular starter since 2021. Like Taylor, he is a low-risk, low-reward passer, but thanks to his history of injuries, he doesn’t have the mobility that Taylor has retained deep into his 30s. 

Tyler Huntley is still a free agent as well. He recently had a tryout with the Bengals but didn’t come away with a new contract. Like Taylor, he’s very mobile. Like Taylor, he doesn’t seem to possess much in the way of consistent upside as a passer. (He’s never averaged more than 6.2 yards per attempt in any of his NFL stints.) He’s a lot younger than Taylor, though, and still has some strong rushing capabilities.

Carson Wentz is also out there. He’s a much different type of quarterback than either Fields or Taylor, though, and if he were signed and counted on to play it might involve the Jets making significant changes to whatever offensive plan they devised this offseason.

Trade options

The most notable veteran options here are obviously Kirk Cousins and Jameis Winston, probably in that order. 

Cousins still being on the Falcons is a bit of a surprise, but the reason Atlanta didn’t trade him is probably because a situation like the one the Jets find themselves in now was a possibility, and the Falcons knew they might eventually be able to extract some value for Cousins rather than cutting him and getting nothing. Whether the Jets or any other team should actually be willing to give something up for Cousins is another question — and the Jets in particular might not be all that interested in walking down the road of an aging quarterback who has recently torn his Achilles after how things went with Aaron Rodgers last year. 

Winston is basically the exact opposite of a guy like Taylor. He is an all-risk, all-reward gunslinger. He is one of the most turnover-prone quarterbacks in the history of football, in large part because he is always chasing explosive plays and he’s willing to put the ball in danger in order to get them. He hasn’t generated them nearly as often in recent seasons as he did early in his career, though, and he’s now posted an interception rate of at least 4% in three of the last four seasons where he’s made multiple starts.

Once you get past those two, you get into guys like Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett, or perhaps even Malik Willis, Drew Lock, Mac Jones, Joe Flacco or Kenny Pickett, who could be varying degrees of available depending on how their teams think of them and/or the value proposition the Jets could offer in a trade. 

Of course, the Jets could also check in with the Browns and see if they’re willing to part with one of Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders in order to clear out some of their quarterback clutter after drafting two quarterbacks in the same class.