Close your eyes Jets fans, your starting quarterback has gone down with an injury.
During training camp on Thursday morning, Justin Fields was carted off the field with a reported lower-leg injury.
Panic set in across the fanbase as the news broke, and details were scarce. Thankfully, a positive update came in just after practice.
“Jets QB Justin Fields, carted off with a toe injury from getting stepped on from practice, suffered a dislocated toe. No fracture and not the big toe,” reported NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport.
“He’s still undergoing tests, but that’s the initial diagnosis. Severity is unclear.“
The Jets have since put out an official statement.
“After medical evaluation following Thursday’s practice, Jets QB Justin Fields sustained a dislocated toe in his right foot and will be day-to-day. The Jets starting QB avoided serious injury and significant missed time.”
It could have been much worse than a dislocated toe. All things considered, it sounds like the Jets avoided catastrophe.
Fields was named the starting quarterback after he signed a two-year, $40 million contract, with $30 million guaranteed, this offseason.
Gang Green is all too familiar with losing their starting quarterback early in the season, as it was less than two years ago when Aaron Rodgers ruptured his Achilles on the fourth snap of his Jets tenure.
New York fans must have had flashbacks to Rodgers going down in Week 1 on MNF against the Buffalo Bills, when they received the notification that Fields was getting carted off.
While the severity is still unknown at this time, one prominent NFL voice has a solution in the meantime.
Robert Griffin III suggested that the Jets should immediately trade for Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins.
“If Justin Fields is out for the season, the New York Jets need to trade for Kirk Cousins,” Griffin wrote on X.
A very dramatic solution to a problem that may not be as bad as initially feared.
However, New York may need to buy some time now as Fields works his way back, and it’s no secret that Cousins is available.
He joined Atlanta last season after signing a four-year, $180 million contract and was set to be their QB1 for the foreseeable future. That was until the Falcons shocked everyone by drafting Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth overall pick in last year’s draft.
Cousins started the season as QB1 but was ultimately benched toward the end of the season after inconsistent, poor play. Penix Jr. was named the starter and hasn’t looked back since.
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Cousins has made it clear that he wants to be a starter somewhere, and that opportunity is no longer in Atlanta. It remains to be seen if the Falcons will move off the expensive QB, but as injuries start to pile up around the league at the most important position, they may be met with an offer they can’t refuse.
Jets fans have to be thinking, “You can’t be serious. Again?”
The Rodgers experiment was a colossal failure, and a lot of that can be blamed on the Achilles. When that ruptured, so did the franchise’s hopes and dreams.
This time around, it could end have been a toe that derailed the Jets season before it got off the ground. Luckily, crisis has been averted.
Welcome to the preseason, where seasons end before they can even begin.