Chiefs Trade For Justin Fields As They Shuffle Their Backup Quarterback Plans

The Kansas City Chiefs have a hole at backup quarterback, and they’ve filled it by trading for New York Jets quarterback Justin Fields, according to a report by Adam Schefter of ESPN, pending Fields ' successful passing of his initial physical. 

Another report from Adam La Rose of ProFootballRumors.com via Ian Rapoport of NFL Network as a pair of late-round draft picks being exchanged, with the Chiefs also getting a seventh-round draft pick in the trade, while the Jets get Kansas City’s sixth-round pick in 2027. 

According to La Rose’s report, the Jets are taking on salary to facilitate this deal, which isn’t surprising at all. Per Pelissero, the Jets will absorb $3 million of the $10 million Fields is guaranteed for this year, which will leave the Chiefs with a $7 million bill for Fields’ services. For the Jets, the deal also clears out a potential quarterback room conflict, with the team evidently committed to going with newly-acquired Geno Smith as its starting QB. Supposedly, there were other teams interested in Fields, but he wanted to go to Kansas City, given the immediate availability of on-field snaps. 

While it does make sense for the Chiefs to trade for a backup quarterback, this is a weird deal in many ways. The Chiefs happily let last year’s backup QB, Gardner Minshew II, move on and sing with the Arizona Cardinals, so that part of the exchange is understandable, given that Minshew could barely get the Chiefs offense on the field and lined up properly when he stepped in after quarterback Patrick Mahomes got hurt last year. 

The part of this that doesn’t make sense is that Fields was mostly abysmal for the Jets last year, and he had multiple games where the Jets' offense fell well short of gaining 100 yards passing. That doesn’t sound like a Mahomes replacement in any way, shape or form, so it’s something of a mystery what GM Brett Veach and coach Andy Reid are thinking with this move. 

Two things make sense here, maybe. One is that the Chiefs need a training-camp quarterback to run plays while Mahomes continues his rehabilitation process, which might signal that Mahomes is perhaps further behind in his rehab than we’ve been led to believe so far. 

The other possible scenario is to give Fields a tryout as a sort of wildcat quarterback, given that he’s already close to being that already. This would be a very Andy Reid thing to do, given his penchant for offensive experiments, and it would also give the Chiefs a chance to take a look at Fields to see what, if anything, he can deliver going forward. Other details are sure to emerge quickly going forward, but that’s what’s been revealed so far.