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.
MORE: Free Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
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.
Dan Fornek’s Justin Fields Fantasy Projection
Justin Fields remains the poster child for a below-average NFL quarterback who is excellent in fantasy football. Fields made just six starts for the Steelers in 2024 and attempted just 161 passes (26.8 per game). He completed 65.8% of his throws for 1,106 yards and five touchdowns with one interception. However, he remained a weapon as a rusher, carrying the ball 55 times for 231 yards and five scores.
Fields appeared in 10 games last season, so his fantasy points per game number (11.9, QB39) is very underwhelming. In four of those games, he played less than eight snaps. If we focus on his scoring during his six starts, his points per game skyrocketed to 19.8. That would have placed him as the QB7. Since 2022, Fields has had three top-10 quarterback finishes with at least 17.0 points scored per season.
MORE:Â Fantasy Football Trade Analyzer
The veteran quarterback will start for the Jets in 2025. New York has a solid offensive line, three capable running backs, a young wide receiver capable of being a WR1 (Garrett Wilson), and an exciting, young tight end (Mason Taylor). Most importantly, the Jets have Tyrod Taylor as their backup, which should keep Fields’s role as the starter safe.
New York will rely on Fields’ ability as a rusher to attack opposing defenses. He should once again have a safe, high-end QB2 floor with top-five upside if he can stay healthy and lean on Wilson and Taylor in the passing attack.
