Geno knows he still has
The Jets have done tireless work propping up a three-man quarterback competition that really isn’t even a two-man quarterback competition. No, the most important training camp/preseason battle has pitted Christian Hackenberg against the man in the mirror. It’s a one-man play with a scrutinized second-year signal caller on the marquee.
It’s time for the Jets to take off the training wheels when Hackenberg takes center stage in Detroit on Saturday night. Sure, mistakes are inevitable, but mistakes can be produc- tive too.
The brain trust has spent the better part of the summer encasing the young quarterback in bubble wrap, seemingly fearful that any sort of setback would cause irreparable damage to his psyche.
Although the team’s desire to build Hackenberg’s confidence with an uber-conservative blueprint in the preseason opener made sense, playing it so safe for a second consecutive week does not.
There’s a fine line between playing aggressive and playing reckless that Hackenberg should be exposed to in the second preseason
Geno Smith ran a lap on Tuesday as penance for fumbling twice in practice, but on Friday he was not running from accountability for his turnovers and a preseasonopening performance below his standard. “I could have been better,” Smith told the Daily News of his Giants debut one week ago against the Pittsburgh Steelers. “I don’t think I really played up to the caliber that I expect, but also knowing it’s my first game back since my knee injury, all the things that go into that, you can never be sure about how you’re gonna feel or how you’re gonna go out there and be on game day.
“But I was very excited that I was able to get through my reads fast. I was seeing things fast,” Smith continued. “I wasn’t nervous or anything. I didn’t hesitate. I was pulling the trigger. Now it’s about cleaning up those little details and making sure I improve for the next game.”
Smith’s next opportunity to prove he deserves to be Eli Manning’s backup will come Monday night in Cleveland, but Manning will start the game, and Smith again will be splitting series with Josh Johnson and perhaps Davis Webb, too, so he’ll need to make his limited time on the field count.
That goes especially after Ben McAdoo sent a message to Smith and Johnson on Thursday that if the backup QB battle “doesn’t look the way we want it to look, Davis will get a crack” at the No. 2 job.
“It doesn’t affect what I do on a daily basis,” game. Dinking and dunking his way to becoming a better quarterback would be terrific if there wasn’t a hard deadline by season’s end.
The Jets, frankly, don’t have the luxury of exposing Hackenberg to a five-year developmental plan. No team does. It’s the NFL. If you don’t grow up fast, the powers that be will find a replacement that can meet those strict requirements.
Hackenberg flashed solid moments last week, but a closer examination of his eight drives that yielded no points revealed just how safe the plan was against the Titans. Consider: Hackenberg’s 4.3-yard average depth per target on his 25 pass attempts ranked 74th among quarterbacks in the first week of the preseason, according to Pro Football Focus.
He threw only two passes that traveled more than 10 yards in the air. Both were incomplete. An eye-opening 40% of his passes (10) went either behind the line of scrimmage or to the level of the line, according to PFF.
Yards after the catch accounted for 68% of his passing yards (86 of 127), which might actually be close to the norm in John Morton’s Webb said Friday. “The past two days I’ve gotten a lot more team reps as far as the scout settings as well as just team periods. So I’ve just been happy with the amount of reps I’ve gotten, and I think I’ve gotten better every single one.”
Smith already knew himself, though, that he needs to play better to earn the job and McAdoo’s trust.
The former Jets second-round pick came out firing in his first drive against the Steelers last week, completing his first three throws, hitting 10of-16 passes for 114 yards and rushing twice for five yards. But he also threw an interception before halftime called back due to a Pittsburgh holding penalty, got picked off again in the third quarter to give the Steelers the ball at the Giants’ own 14-yard line, and then in Tuesday’s practice fumbled both a snap for a safety and a handoff exchange with rookie running back Wayne Gallman.
Turnovers are the greatest threat to Smith losing this competition. While Smith was more decisive in the opener than his competition, the veteran incumbent Johnson (5-for10, 31 yards) didn’t turn the ball over. Smith can’t replicate his erratic 28-to-36 Jets TD-toINT ratio this preseason and expect to stick with the Giants. He seems to understand that clearly. “You just try and be mindful all the time that you can’t have turnovers, obviously, and not put the team in bad situations,” he said. “(But) I focus on how I look in practice, what