Jalen Milroe Compared to Jets' Justin Fields by NFL Scouts Ahead of 2025 Draft

Ahead of the 2025 NFL draft later this month, Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe is drawing comparisons to a recent first-round pick.

According to ESPN's Jeremy Fowler, multiple scouts have compared Milroe to New York Jets quarterback Justin Fields due to their shared size, speed and arm strength, as well as their struggles with "accuracy, touch and decision-making."

In 2021, the Chicago Bears selected Fields 11th overall out of Ohio State, and he showed some flashes of brilliance during his three seasons in the Windy City.

Most notably, Fields rushed for 1,143 yards and eight touchdowns in 2022, however, his play never translated to winning football in Chicago, as the Bears went 10-28 in games he started.

Fields was traded from Chicago to the Pittsburgh Steelers last offseason, and he started the first six games of the 2024 campaign while Russell Wilson was on the shelf due to injury.

He posted a 4-2 record in those starts, completing 65.8 percent of his passes for 1,106 yards, five touchdowns and one interception, while also rushing for 289 yards and five scores.

The Jets clearly felt there was some untapped potential with Fields, as they signed the 26-year-old to a two-year, $40 million deal in free agency.

Milroe has been a tough evaluation, as opinions on him seem to range from potential first-round pick to a Day 3 developmental project.

In 2023, he finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting by virtue of completing 65.8 percent of his passing attempts for 2,834 yards, 23 touchdowns and six interceptions to go along with 531 yards and 12 scores on the ground.

Milroe was still a highly effective runner last season, rushing for 726 yards and 20 touchdowns, but he regressed significantly as a passer, completing 64.3 percent of his passes for 2,844 yards, 16 touchdowns and 11 picks.

Fowler noted that 10 of Milroe's 11 interceptions were on throws of 15 air yards or less, which speaks to his accuracy struggles in the short-to-intermediate range.

An anonymous NFC executive said Milroe "has trouble going through his progressions and is not accurate," while an AFC exec said, "At some point someone will say he's too good an athlete to not take."

An NFL national scout suggested to Fowler that Milroe's best chance of success at the next level is if a team slowly and carefully develops him, saying: "If you can sit him for multiple years and then tailor your offense around him, you could really have something. But you would have to be all-in on his dual-threat ability. Work ethic is not a concern with him."

For all his inconsistencies as a passer, Milroe ran an aggregated 4.40-second 40-yard dash at his pro day, meaning he has speed and athleticism that few other quarterbacks possess.

On its latest big board released this week, the BR NFL Scouting Department ranked Milroe as the No. 77 overall player and No. 5 quarterback in the 2025 NFL draft behind Miami's Cam Ward, Colorado's Shedeur Sanders, Ole Miss' Jaxson Dart and Ohio State's Will Howard.

An overall ranking of 77 imputes a third-round value for Milroe, and if there are some quarterback-needy teams that didn't manage to land a signal-caller in the first two rounds, it is easy to envision one of them taking a chance on Milroe's immense potential late on Day 2.