Deservedly so, Justin Fields is getting another chance to be an NFL starting quarterback in 2025. Throughout his career, Fields has always been productive when starting. Is the New York Jets’ new quarterback a premier late-round QB target for fantasy football managers this season?
Justin Fields Fantasy Outlook
Fields gets a bad rap. No one is mistaking Fields with an elite quarterback or someone who can carry a team to a Super Bowl. However, Fields is definitely one of the 32 best quarterbacks walking the planet and deserves to be a starter.
Last season, Fields had to settle for a backup role in Pittsburgh, but found himself with the opportunity to start due to Russell Wilson’s training camp calf strain.
Fields wound up starting six games, going 4-2 in that span. Yet, he was benched following a win.
The merits of Fields’ benching aren’t really relevant to us, though. What we care about is how Fields performed when he was starting.
In his six games as a starter, Fields was his usual QB1 self. He averaged 18.9Â fantasy points per game, which extrapolates to the overall QB8 over the entire 2024 season.
In his career, Fields has always been a fantasy QB1 when starting. In total, he’s made 44 career starts between Chicago and Pittsburgh, averaging 17.2 points per game. However, even that doesn’t paint the proper picture.
Fields was deployed with kid gloves for the first half of his rookie season. He didn’t start really utilizing his mobility until Week 8. So, if we remove Weeks 1-7 of his rookie year, Fields has averaged 18.5 PPG as a starter.
Averaging 54.9 rushing yards per game as a starter, Fields comes with an incredibly high floor. With those numbers, Fields simply needs about 100 yards passing and a touchdown to get near 15 fantasy points. Any week in which he scores twice, he’s probably pushing 20.
Since entering the league, only six quarterbacks have had a game in which they reached 40 fantasy points. Fields is one of them.
If anyone says Justin Fields can’t pass from the pocket, show them this video: pic.twitter.com/yPafKdKHOu
— Justin Fields Fan Club (@JustinFieldsFC) June 19, 2025
Fields’ ADP opened in the dirt, but has since ticked all the way up to QB11. I have Fields ranked as my QB10. I’m taking him ahead of guys like Brock Purdy, Jared Goff, and Dak Prescott.
The primary concern with Fields is job security. We know he’ll produce in the starting role, but he hasn’t been good enough to keep a job throughout his career.
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On the Jets, it’s really hard to envision a scenario in which he doesn’t start all 17 games outside of injury. The Jets’ backup quarterback is 36-year-old Tyrod Taylor. What incentive would the Jets have to turn to Taylor, even if they are losing games? And I don’t think they will lose games, at least not at the rate necessary to spark talks of benching Fields.
The Jets rank 15th in PFSN’s Defense+ metric. Fields will have Garrett Wilson as his top target offensively. This is not a team likely to be terrible. Even a 7-8 win team should be enough to keep Fields under center the entire season. If you wait on QB, Fields should be at the top of your list of late-round QBs to draft.
Mason LeBeau’s Justin Fields Fantasy Projection
Initially, I had Fields ranked relatively high in my own QB rankings. There’s still plenty of optimism around him as a fantasy asset, mostly from his ability to run. The Jets are banking on him to show a little to get them through 2025, even if they don’t plan on winning a ton. It’s another reset year for New York, but if Fields can tap into his upside going into his age-26 season, it’ll give the team more flexibility and momentum going forward.Â
Despite not coming together as a full-fledged quarterback, Fields has been an elite fantasy player whenever he starts. His 2022 QB6 finish in only 15 games and 2,242 passing yards show that his ability as a runner is impressive.Â
If given a full season, he may be able to surpass the 3,000-plus passing yards mark and inch over 20-plus passing touchdowns, which, when combined with his rushing, would easily give him a QB10-plus finish.Â
However, I have some fear here. His ceiling as a passer is so limited that it requires his ground production to be elite. That’s always been the case, but his per-17 from his six starts last year put him closer to 600 yards rushing (with ~14 touchdowns). For Fields to be truly reliable, he must come closer to that 1,000-yard mark like he did in 2022.
I also don’t fully believe he’s safe to start for the whole season. There isn’t a young quarterback in the wings behind him, so while he’ll have a long leash, I don’t necessarily believe he’s guaranteed 17 games. The team loves Tyrod Taylor, and if we get 10-to-14 games of Justin Fields delivering what we expect, and the team is sitting a bit below .500, they could very easily turn to Taylor to finish the season.
That makes Fields a really good bet in 1QB leagues where pivoting from him will be quite easy. He should give you a reasonable floor with immense upside on a week-to-week basis. It’s a far riskier bet in Superflex, where I’m content to draft him at a slight value, but won’t rush out of my way to grab him early.
