ESPN will have the resources to see if this is actually the first time ever, but from where I sit I think it is. The Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Jets open the 2025 season with starting quarterbacks that last year were the opening day starters for their opponent.

In 2024, the Pittsburgh Steelers kicked off the season with Justin Fields behind center. He is now the starting quarterback for the New York Jets. The quarterback that opened last year in New York was Aaron Rodgers, who will lead the Steelers into MetLife Stadium tomorrow.

Neither franchise was happy with their starting quarterback last year.

The Jets two-year experiment with an aging signal caller had run its course and first-year head coach Aaron Glenn arrived knowing he wanted a change at the most important position on the field. The Rodgers saga in New York arrived with all the fanfare of the circus coming to town and results no better than an outhouse burning down.

In his first season in New York, he suffered a season ending injury on the campaign’s first series of downs. Okay, a year off for a guy approaching 40 years old, which is like 74 in football years, started last season with renewed hopes for the Jets and head coach Robert Saleh.

Didn’t go well.

The Jets won only two of their first seven games, Saleh was out as head coach after five weeks, and the New York team that wears green entered another offseason with wholesale changes both in the front office and on the field. Interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich won only three of the dozen games he guided and was replaced by Aaron Glenn, who is now serving as the Jets 22nd franchise head coach. Only one of those previous 21 men to lead the Jets on the sidelines before Glenn ended their tenure in New York with a winning record. That would be Bill Parcells, who served as head coach for three seasons beginning in 1997 and both led the Jets to the playoffs and compiled a 30-20 won/loss record.

Without their win in Super Bowl III over the Baltimore Colts the Jets would have less accomplishments to boast than a competitor in a track meet bound to a wheelchair.

Glenn’s new quarterback in New York started the first six games for the Steelers in 2024 and collected four wins. That success rate was much better than what Fields earned for the team that drafted him in the first round four years ago. During three seasons as the Chicago Bears starter, Fields registered two, three and five wins while losing a combined 28 contests.

In other words, Fields did much better with the Steelers, but not good enough to keep the starting job once Russell Wilson recovered from an injury he suffered in the preseason.

While Fields worked in Pittsburgh last year, Rodgers was leading another crash for the Jets. The one-time star in Green Bay has seen his statistics mirror what one might expect from a career backup once he was out of the security provided by one of the best-run organizations in the league. Now he gets another chance at football life with another of the organizations that are run as well as any in football.

The Steelers head coach is only the third mentor Pittsburgh has had since Chuck Noll turned a struggling franchise into an NFL power beginning in 1969. After winning four Super Bowls during his 23 years coaching the Steelers, he turned the position over to Bill Cowher, who added another Vince Lombardi Trophy to the Steelers collection. Cowher was succeeded by Mike Tomlin in 2007. He added a sixth trophy to the Steelers case and this season is looking for a 19th consecutive winning season … for you math wizards, that means Tomlin has never had a losing season.

Fields moves from a strong franchise to a weak one; Rodgers moves from a weak one to a strong one, and they square off on Sunday.

Thinking, thinking, thinking.

Qoxhi Picks: Pittsburgh Steelers (-3) over New York Jets