Up and Down day for Justin Fields at OTAs as Receivers Shine

While it’s entirely too early to take very much away from how the Jets look in OTA’s at this point in the offseason, there were a couple of observations made today that stood out to us.  We’re going to cover a few that were brought up right here:

Justin Fields: Following the signing of Fields this offseason, we put together this video of every throw he made with the Steelers last season.  Something we took away from this were not only the frequency in which he leaned on wide receiver George Pickens, but the superhuman efforts required from Pickens to haul in some of Fields’ off-target deep shots.

That reportedly continued today when Fields threw what Zack Rosenblatt of The Athletic described as a “poorly thrown ball” that Garrett Wilson had to leap and contort to come up with.  Those are fun plays when they happen, but they just aren’t sustainable.  Fields has to clean that up.

The safeties: Gang Green’s most accomplished safety is free agent addition Andre Cisco.  But don’t let that lead you to believe they don’t have some talented young players at the position.  Rookie Malachi Moore and Tony Adams are the guys on the depth chart that most fans are familiar with, but it doesn’t end there.

Jaylin Simpson and Jarius Monroe both enter their second season and could be two of the biggest beneficiaries of having Aaron Glenn take over as the team’s head coach.  Glenn has worked some magic with young safeties in the past.  Now he’ll have a chance to do it again with the Jets.

According to Rich Cimini of ESPN, Moore and Simpson had interceptions today while Monroe broke up a pass in the end zone.

Xavier Gipson: Gipson has been largely invisible on offense since making the roster as an undrafted free agent two years ago.  Given the Jets lack of depth at receiver this season, he has a shot to stick around if he makes some plays.  He did just that today when he made an acrobatic catch on a 4th and 14 pass from Tyrod Taylor.

Aaron Glenn’s honesty: In an interesting story from Dan Leberfeld of Jets Confidential, Aaron Glenn had a frank conversation with linebacker Quincy Williams this offseason.  The chat reportedly lasted an hour and a half.  During their talk, Glenn told Williams that he’s done some good things, but didn’t blow any smoke.  He told Williams that there are holes in his game that have to be fixed and hopes to get him on track to do just that.