“So He Faked It?”: Fans React As Justin Fields Resumes Practice After Dislocating His Toe

Justin Fields is already getting a taste of just how the New York media can be. The 26-year-old quarterback felt disrespected by his 2024 employers, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and so turned to the New York Jets for a two-year, $40 million contract.

Fields and his new Jets teammates reported for training camp duty in Florham Park, N.J., earlier this week. However, things started pretty inauspiciously for the QB. On July 24, just the third day of practice, Fields went down with an apparent leg injury. After limping to the sideline, he was checked by medical staff and then carted off the field.

Head coach Aaron Glenn revealed that it was a toe injury sustained after Fields was stepped on. Does it get any more Jets than that? Thankfully, Fields underwent x-rays and there were no fractures. It was then reported by Ian Rapoport that the injury was a dislocated non-big toe, which makes it much less impactful. In fact, after x-rays and MRIs, he was right back out on the practice field with his teammates on Friday.

It’s not like he’s sprinting or cutting in that short video from ESPN insider Adam Schefter, but he seems to be jogging pretty comfortably. If this had been a big toe injury, Fields likely would have missed more than a few days of practice. Turf toe can be a nagging issue, so they really dodged a bullet with the injury happening to one of the little piggies.

However, some fans took the opportunity to voice their opinions. One user said, “So he faked it then?” Thankfully, another Twitter user replied correctly that, “No the media engagement farmed off of it.”

Nearly all of the other replies and quotes of Schefter’s Fields video focused on how intensely the media covered his little toe issue on Thursday and how they completely over-reported and made this an overblown story. “You would of thought this dude died the way the media handled it yesterday,” said one fan. “You started all of this making it seem like he had a torn Achilles,” said another.

The first Fields report stated he was “carted off” without much other information, which certainly made it seem worse than it was. Technically, Justin rode the cart back into the facility, but he limped off to the sidelines before that. It wasn’t like he couldn’t get up or get off the field on his own. Plus, the cart is generally used for all minor or major training camp injuries, as the medical facilities are often far from the practice fields.

In the end, this was really much ado about nothing. Just reporters and media pundits looking for something to talk about during the offseason.