Jets' QB situation: They'll definitely have a new one to start next season
Who will quarterback the Jets next week and next year?
Tyrod Taylor walked silently and gingerly out of the Jets’ locker room before it was opened to reporters, grabbed a drink, pulled the hood of his red coat up over his head and exited MetLife Stadium.
A moment later, Justin Fields followed him with far less of a limp but with the same sullen, shocked expression on his face.
They were the two quarterbacks the Jets had been counting on to carry them through this season. They certainly did not accomplish that. And on this Sunday, neither even made it through the first quarter of the 34-10 loss to the Dolphins.
Fields was scratched on Friday with knee soreness that sprung up in practice during the week. Taylor was knocked out with a groin injury after his second series ended with an interception.
Undrafted rookie Brady Cook, promoted from the practice squad to be the backup, played most of the game. He had a few promising moments and never seemed to lose his cool, but he threw two interceptions and looked generally overmatched. Cook is still raw.
These are the quarterbacks with whom the Jets will play out the final month of the 2025 season. Maybe they’ll be forced to add someone to the mix just to have able bodies.
“We’ll look at all that going into next week,” Aaron Glenn said of the unappetizing options, unsure after the game who might start next week’s contest at Jacksonville.
They’ll get a jump on looking at it going into next season, too.
One thing is very obvious regarding that situation: The Jets will be starting from scratch at the position when the offseason begins because none of their three current players can be trusted to lead them forward. That probably already was the case before Sunday, but now it’s become crystallized.
Taylor is the most productive quarterback they have, but at age 36, he is too fragile to build around even as a veteran bridge to a future player. Depending on the severity of his injury, he might never play another snap for the Jets.
Fields, benched for his ineffective play three games ago, already has shown he is not the answer.
Cook? He was the mystery piece, the unknown element who might have had enough magic in him to get people wondering about his potential. Alas, no. Not after Sunday, at least.
And so the next time the Jets take the field still alive for playoff contention — which will be Week 1 of the 2026 season now that they have been eliminated for a 15th straight year without reaching the postseason — the starting quarterback will be someone not on the roster right now.
A draft pick? Another free agent? It could go in any number of routes, just none the Jets currently have in their GPS.
Other things will need to change too, and that was evident from this effort. With Cook obviously in over his head, the Jets needed players to come to his rescue and help him find his footing. None of them could.
Several passes were dropped, including what would have been an easy walk-in touchdown throw to John Metchie III in the fourth quarter. The running game never got going, and the pass protection had trouble accounting for the pressures the Dolphins dialed up to confuse the rookie signal-caller.
“Once Tyrod gets hurt, I need to do a better job of rallying the guys and getting everybody just that much more ready to execute for Brady,” said Breece Hall, who was limited to 43 yards on 14 carries. “From an offensive standpoint, we all could have been better for our QBs today.”
Defense, too. The Jets dropped three would-be interceptions — they still remarkably have none on the season — and the Dolphins fumbled the ball once but recovered it.
There also was a play late in the second quarter that looked like a backward pass from Tua Tagovailoa, which should have been a live ball that Brandon Stephens recovered in the end zone for a touchdown, but the ruling on the field was an incomplete forward pass, and that call withstood video review.
When Glenn hyped up Cook on Friday after announcing that Fields would not be playing, he talked glowingly about the kid’s competitiveness and his ability to take advantage of opportunities.
“He’s going to be a quarterback in this league, I do know that,” Glenn said. “I can’t tell you when, but he’ll be a quarterback in this league.”
He probably was hoping it would not be two days later. And Cook likely did not envision his NFL introduction coming with his team already down 21-0 in the first quarter.
But here they were, just trying to get through the day. Trying to get through this season. Trying to get through this quarterback depth chart that will have to be dismantled and rebuilt in the next few months.
As if to point out the depths of the Jets’ woes and the organizational dilemma they currently face, Miami put its own backup quarterback in for the final two possessions to close out the game. He didn’t throw a pass and his last two snaps were kneel-downs in the victory formation. With most of the building emptied out aside from a few die-hard Dolphins fans who wanted to get their road trip money’s worth at that point, he even received some cheers for the effort.
That’s how bad the Jets’ current quarterback situation is.
Zach Wilson got the better of them.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
