New York Jets owner Woody Johnson has once again drawn criticism, this time from former Jets quarterback Jordan Travis, who shared his personal experiences with the team’s management during his brief tenure. Johnson found himself under the media microscope last week for publicly questioning the performance of starting quarterback Justin Fields after a disappointing 0-7 start to the 2025 season.
At the NFL owners’ meeting, Johnson said of Fields,
“It’s hard when you have a quarterback with the rating that we’ve got. He has the ability, but something is not jibing,” Johnson said. “If you look at any head coach with a quarterback like that, you are going to see similar results across the league. You have to play consistently at that position, and that’s what we’re going to try to do for the remainder of the season.”
Travis, a fifth-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, opened up on his podcast, Travis Takes Two, about similar comments Johnson had made to him during his short tenure with the team. Selected after suffering a career-ending leg injury at Florida State, Travis never appeared in a regular-season game and ultimately retired in April this year after rehab proved unsuccessful.
“I gotta tell you, that guy [Woody Johnson], no disrespect, but there were things said to me, not obviously to that point because I never got on the field to play, but about my leg,” Travis said. “Like, just slick comments, I don’t know if he was trying to be slick about it. You know how some older people they just say whatever comes to their mind, and it kind of made me feel a certain type of way.
“‘You ever gonna get healthy?' And I’m just like, ‘Damn.' Not like, ‘How you feeling?' Never that, it was always comments like that. It kind of upset me, but kind of rolled over my head.”
Jordan Travis addresses Woody Johnson’s comments on Justin Fields 👀 pic.twitter.com/GZfVQCm7hp
— Travis Take Two (@travistaketwo) October 29, 2025
Travis also reflected on the pressure Fields has faced as the New York starter. Following back-to-back poor performances against the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers, Fields was benched mid-game before returning to lead the team to a 39-38 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. In that game, Fields threw for 244 yards and a touchdown. Moreover, Travis gave credit to Fields for handling Johnson’s public criticism with professionalism.
Johnson’s methods have attracted vehement condemnation, including from former NFL quarterback Alex Smith, who expounded on the franchise’s recurrent hardships:
“Maybe the problem is you, Woody. Maybe you look in the mirror,” he said. “You have the longest playoff drought in all of the NFL. It starts at the top, and it trickles down. This is cowardly. This is an owner that's deflecting because his organization is terrible, and he drove the bus over a 26-year-old quarterback.”
Having failed to secure a postseason berth for over ten years, the Jets continue to remain continue to attract persistent rebuke for their leadership and ownership decisions.
