Ten months ago, Justin Fields began the 2024 season as the Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback. Despite a solid six-game showing, during which he was instrumental to the team’s 4-2 start, he was replaced by Russell Wilson, who battled an ankle injury in training camp that gave Fields an edge for the QB1 spot when the regular season began.
Wilson remained the Steelers starter for the remainder of the season as they hobbled into the playoffs, losing their last four regular season games, finishing 10-7, second in the AFC North, before losing their wildcard game 28-14 to the division champion Baltimore Ravens.
As fate would have it, both are now the declared starters for New York’s squads as Fields was the first to exit the Steelers, signing a two-year, $40 million contract with Jets on March 13 while two weeks later Wilson and the Giants agreed to a 1-year, $10.5 million deal with incentives that could push his earnings to $21 million.
As NFL training camps began this week, the Jets — under new head coach Aaron Glenn, formerly the Detroit Lions’ defensive coordinator (2021–24), and general manager Darren Mougey, the Denver Broncos’ assistant GM from 2022 to 2024 — are hopeful that 26-year-old Justin Fields, drafted by the Chicago Bears with the No. 11 overall pick in 2021, will be their long-term starter and elevate the franchise to Super Bowl contention.
First things first: becoming a playoff team — something the Jets haven’t been since the 2010 postseason, making their 14-year drought the longest of all teams in the four major North American sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL). The team finished 5-12 last season.
“I just think he’s ready to break out as a top-notch quarterback,” Glenn said to an NFL Network reporter in late March.
The 36-year-old Wilson is in the final stages of his playing days. How much longer he’ll continue is unclear, but the Giants see him as capable steward until Jaxson Dart — whom they traded up for in April’s draft, moving from the second round to select at No. 25 overall out of the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) — is ready to take on arguably the toughest job in team sports.
Wilson has started in two Super Bowls with the Seattle Seahawks (2014, 2015), winning in 2014, and is a ten-time Pro Bowl selection. One of his charges under head coach Brian Daboll and GM Joe Schoen, both now in Year 4 for a team that was 3-14 a season ago, is clear: help the Giants become respectable as part of the building process and teach Dart.
“Yeah, I expect to be the starter and come in here and be ready to rock and roll every day,” said Wilson in late March. “This team is really looking for somebody to lead them in every way in terms of process and the offseason, during the season, our habits and our thought process, how we create a great winning culture, and how do we continue to establish that, to really build on things that we do well and things we need to continue to do.”