Source: Sarah Stier / Getty
The New York Jets being an embarrassingly bad NFL team isn’t a novel idea, so them going into week 8 winless wasn’t exactly a shock.
But they were able to narrowly beat the at-home Cincinnati Bengals, 39-38, this weekend, and in the postgame press conference, Jets quarterback Justin Fields talked about the negative impact of all the pressure that’s been sitting squarely on his shoulders since the beginning of the season.
Suffering loss after loss for seven straight weeks has been tough on his mental health, and Fields revealed his dark moments alone leading up to the Bengals game.
First, he admits that “It’s been a lot for me emotionally, spiritually. When I was on the field, I was damn near about to start crying, not because we won but because of the goodness of God.”
“I’m going to get pretty vulnerable right here,” Fields said. “This week, I found myself in my closet crying on the ground, lying down. Not because of the hardships, not because of the troubles. I felt like I was built to handle that and put in this place to handle this situation, but in that moment, when I was talking to my best friend about how hard it was and not wavering faith-wise, I had just gotten a text from my sister and my stepmom, and it was just an encouraging text to keep going and keep spreading the faith.”
It wasn’t just the fans who mentioned the Jets’ winless season; the call came from within the house. Jets owner Woody Johnson, who’s previously propped up Fields’ potential, suddenly became openly critical last week.
“It’s hard when you have a quarterback with a rating that we’ve got. He has the ability, but something just is not jibing.”
He later added, “If we can just complete a pass, it would look good,” and “You can’t run the ball if you can’t pass the ball. That’s Football 101.”
Fields did his best to ignore the comments, even categorizing Johnson’s words as “outside noise.”
He had a decent Sunday afternoon, throwing for 244 yards and a touchdown. Despite being down 15 points in the fourth quarter, he didn’t give up and helped his team overcome, including scoring on two 2-point conversions to secure the win.
See social media’s reaction to Fields’ vulnerability below.
