Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar will write about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. It’s time to take a look at what quarterback Justin Fields did for the New York Jets in their narrow loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. Far from the first-round draft bust he had been portrayed to be, Fields looked like a quarterback in (nearly) complete command of his new offense.
Justin Fields’ NFL career
had devolved to the point where nobody expected much from him at all.
The 11th overall pick in the 2021 draft out of Ohio State had three seasons with the Chicago Bears in which the results were more unimpressive than not, and while it wasn’t all Fields’ fault — Chicago’s offenses at the time under Bill Lazor and Luke Getsy weren’t exactly world-beaters — but by the end of the 2023 season, the Bears were ready to move on. They did so by trading Fields to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a conditional sixth-round pick, and selecting USC’s Caleb Williams with the first overall pick in the 2024 draft.
We’re still waiting to see how the Williams experiment turns out, but Fields was in for another career dip in the Steel City. He got starting reps early in the season while Russell Wilson recovered from injury, and then was summarily dismissed to the role of backup and occasional gadget player when Wilson returned to the stage.
Then, it was on to the new-look New York Jets under head coach Aaron Glenn and offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand, formerly the Detroit Lions’ pas game coordinator under Ben Johnson. As everybody reading this knows, the Jets haven’t exactly been on an all-time streak when it comes to great offensive minds in the building (Nathaniel Hackett? Really?), but the hope was that Engstrand could make the most out of Fields. The Jets were cautious with the equation; that’s why Fields only got a two-year, $40 million contract with $30 million guaranteed that made him one of the lowest-paid starting quarterbacks in the NFL.
Perhaps even the Jets didn’t completely expect what they got from Fields in his debut. Against a Steelers defense that ranked eighth in DVOA last season, Fields completed 16 of 22 passes for 218 yards, one touchdown, and four explosive passes…
…and as a runner (which most people would tell you is where his game starts and ends), Fields gained 48 yards and scored two touchdowns on 12 carries.
Unfortunately, Fields couldn’t quite pull the win out against his former team. With the Steelers up 34-32, the Jets had the ball with 25 seconds left in the game, with fourth-and-2, and the ball at their own 38-yard line. Fields tried to hit receiver Garrett Wilson with a short pass when he probably had the first down himself with a scramble, and Jalen Ramsey put a stop to THAT.
Still, the Jets may have something real here, and while both Glenn and Fields said postgame that there’s no such thing as a moral victory in the building, if Fields can play this way throughout the 2025 season, you might take a two-point loss to discover that.
“I’ve said this a number of times — I just want our quarterback to be efficient,” Glenn concluded regarding his quarterback. “And he went out and he did that. With him and the run game, the way that he runs the read-option game, he makes a decision on keeping the ball — I thought he was outstanding on that.
“Some of these throws that he got out of the pocket, set himself up, got his shoulders square and delivered the ball — I thought it was outstanding. To me, those are the things that he continued to improve on, and he’s going to continue to improve on those things. It’s the first game. I expect him to continue to get better at that.”
As for Fields, he may be the most confident he’s been since he came into the NFL, which tells you all you need to know about existing in the right environment.
“It’s like … I’m kind of expecting them to score, so it’s like, yo, if they score or not, I’m ready to go,“ Fields said of his Week 1 opponent. ”And, you know, that’s the mindset that I pretty much had all game. It’s football — you know you’re going to take punches, and you’re going to punch. And that’s just how this game is, especially when two good teams go at it. So you can’t let any of that faze you — just got to keep going out there and driving the ball downfield.”
When the Jets take on the Buffalo Bills next Sunday, Fields will have another opportunity to show the new version of himself against an opposing offense even more capable of trading punches, but a defense that might not be at the same level as what Pittsburgh puts on the field. So far in Year 6 of his career, he appears to be ready for whatever challenge the NFL throws at him.
