Fields on Jets' passing game: 'We're fine with 8-yard completions' and tiring defenses with runs

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — The New York Jets' passing game has been short on long passes this summer.

The lack of deep throws has some fans anxious, wondering if Justin Fields and the offense will be able to stretch the field against opponents this season when needed. Well, relying on the run and mixing in short passes might be an effective alternative.

“I mean, yeah, we’re fine with taking 8-yard completions every play, if I’m being honest with you,” Fields said Tuesday before practice.

Fields and the starters on offense played just two series in the Jets' 31-12 preseason loss to the Giants last Saturday night — and it was hardly an eye-popping display through the air.

Fields, signed to a two-year, $40 million deal in the offseason to replace Aaron Rodgers as the Jets’ starting quarterback, went just 1-for-5 passing for 4 yards. Meanwhile, New York ran the ball 13 times for 55 yards — with Fields getting 5 yards on his lone run, which was originally called a pass play.

Boring, sure. And coach Aaron Glenn said the offense, in general, wasn't good enough. But Fields insists there's a method to methodically testing teams on the ground.

“Of course you want explosives, but like I said Saturday, we’re not going to force the ball down the field,” Fields said. “If they want to get depth on the second level, we're fine with taking the 8-, 10-yard completion and taking time off the clock and just driving down the field and having 10-, 15-play drives. It gets the defense tired.”

One of the Jets' strengths is their running game with the trio of Breece Hall, Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis in the backfield. They've all looked solid throughout training camp and the two preseason games, although Davis sat out against the Giants with an ankle issue.

The ground-and-pound approach was on full display Saturday night, when the Jets opened their second possession by running on 10 straight plays before an incompletion by Fields on third-and-2 to Garrett Wilson. The 11-play drive was capped by a 38-yard field goal by Nick Folk.

“It might not be as exciting on the offensive side of the ball for the fans,” Fields said. “Like I said, it’s efficient ball. It’s also getting the defense tired and, you know, just driving down the field like that.”

Left guard John Simpson welcomes it, saying he and his fellow offensive linemen light up a little more when they know it's going to be a run play.

“The identity of this team is physicality,” Simpson said. "No matter what play it is — run, pass, whatever — I think coach does a good job at telling us that that’s what he wants. He wants it to be, whatever it is, to be physical.

“And if that means we've got to run the ball 12 times, 15 times in a row, that’s what it is, so I’m ready for it.”

Just as he was Saturday night when he and his O-linemates heard the play calls for almost the entire second series.

“Let’s go, yeah, I love it,” Simpson said with a laugh. “I just want to be as physical as I can and just dominate. It don’t really matter to me what the play is, but when I do hear a run call, I do get a little bit excited.”

Fields would also appear to be a fine fit for a run-first system in new coordinator Tanner Engstrand’s offense. He has terrific scrambling ability, with a knack for turning what seems to be a broken play into a positive with his legs.

In his second NFL season with Chicago in 2022, Fields ran for a career-best 1,143 yards and eight scores. Simpson is used to playing with a quarterback who can run, having been teammates with Lamar Jackson in Baltimore during the 2023 season.

“It’s kind of not too different for me,” Simpson said. “At the end of the day, it’s just football. He’ll find an open hole if he’s got to get loose and run. It’s just us five (O-linemen) doing our job, protecting. And then if he’s got to get loose, he’ll get loose.”

Despite what the starting offense has shown through camp and the preseason, Glenn insists he remains “very confident” in Fields and the Jets' ability to get the ball down the field through the air.

“You have so many people that want to talk about a small amount of plays these guys get to go out there and play,” Glenn said. “Then, everything is falling down because we throw six passes. And then he's Johnny Unitas when we throw four passes. It bothers me and I laugh at it quite a bit.

"But the thing is I understand it. That's the noise that happens on the outside that our guys can't really listen to.”

Glenn announced “a good amount” of the Jets' starters will not play in New York's preseason finale against the Philadelphia Eagles on Friday night. But he declined to say which players would sit.

Defensive tackle Quinnen Williams (calf) returned to practice and edge rusher Jermaine Johnson participated in some team drills for the first time since tearing his right Achilles tendon in Week 2 last season.

Cornerback Sauce Gardner was back from a calf injury that sidelined him a few practices. He came up limping after a play late in practice, but Glenn said he was just kicked in the leg and is fine.

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New York Jets running back Braelon Allen (0) carries the ball against the New York Giants during the first quarter of an NFL football game, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)

New York Jets running back Breece Hall (20) carries the ball against the New York Giants during the first quarter of an NFL football game, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

New York Jets quarterback Justin Fields (7) throws under pressure from New York Giants linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux (5) during the first quarter of an NFL football game, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

New York Jets quarterback Justin Fields (7) carries the ball against the New York Giants during the first quarter of an NFL football game, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Investigations into the Brown University mass shooting and the slaying of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor shifted Thursday when authorities discovered evidence they say indicates they were committed by the same man, who was then found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The attacker at Brown killed two students and wounded nine others in an engineering building on Saturday. Some 50 miles (80 kilometers) away MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro was killed Monday night in his home in the Boston suburb of Brookline.

The FBI had earlier said it knew of no links between the cases.

Here are some answers to questions about the attacks and investigations:

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility after a six-day search that spanned several New England states.

Brown University President Christina Paxson said Neves Valente was enrolled at Brown from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001. He was admitted to the graduate school to study physics beginning in September 2000.

“He has no current affiliation with the university,” she said.

Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa. He eventually obtained legal permanent residence status in September 2017. His last known residence was in Miami.

There are still “a lot of unknowns” in regard to motive, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said. “We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom,” he said.

Loureiro, 47, who was married, joined MIT in 2016 and was named last year to lead the school’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he worked to advance clean energy technology and other research. The center, one of MIT’s largest labs, had more than 250 people working across seven buildings when he took the helm. He was a professor of physics and nuclear science and engineering.

Valente and Loureiro attended the same academic program at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000, Foley said. Loureiro graduated from the physics program at Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal’s premier engineering school, in 2000, according to his MIT faculty page.

The same year, Neves Valente was let go from a position at the Lisbon university, according to an archive of a termination notice from the school’s then-president in February 2000.

Authorities released several security videos of a person thought might have carried out the Brown attack. They showed the individual standing, walking and even running along the streets, but their face is masked or turned away in all of them.

Police say a witness then gave investigators a key tip: he saw someone who looked like the person of interest with a Nissan sedan displaying Florida plates. That enabled Providence police officers to tap into a network of more than 70 street cameras operated around the city by surveillance company Flock Safety. Those cameras track license plates and other vehicle details.

After leaving Rhode Island for Massachusetts, Providence officials said the suspect stuck a Maine license plate over the rental car’s plate to help conceal his identity.

Video footage showed Neves Valente entering an apartment building near Loureiro’s. About an hour later, he was seen entering the New Hampshire storage facility where he was later found dead, Foley said.

The two students who were killed and the nine others wounded were studying for a final in a first-floor classroom in an older section of the engineering building when the shooter walked in and opened fire.

Those killed were 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook and 18-year-old freshman MukhammadAziz Umurzokov. Cook, whose funeral is Monday, was active in her Alabama church and served as vice president of the Brown College Republicans. Umurzokov’s family immigrated to the U.S. from Uzbekistan when he was a child, and he aspired to be a doctor.

As for the wounded, six were in stable condition Thursday, officials said. The other three were discharged.

Neves Valiente gained permanent residency status through a green card lottery program, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X.

She said President Donald Trump ordered her to pause the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services program.

The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the United States, many of them in Africa.

The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.

Whittle reported from Portland, Maine. Contributing were Associated Press reporters Kimberlee Kruesi, Amanda Swinhart, Robert F. Bukaty, Matt O’Brien and Jennifer McDermott in Providence; Michael Casey in Boston; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Kathy McCormack and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Eric Tucker in Washington.

This combo image made with photos provided by the FBI and the Providence, Rhode Island, Police Department shows a person of interest in the shooting that occurred at Brown University in Providence, R.I., Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. (FBI/Providence Police Department via AP)

A memorial of flowers and signs lay outside the Barus and Holley engineering building at Brown University, on Hope Street in Providence, R.I., on Tuesday, Dec 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt OBrien)

A Brown University student leaves campus, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, after all classes, exams and papers were canceled for the rest of the Fall 2025 semester following the school shooting, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)