YOU AGAIN?!
Geno’s long journey comes full circle — under center for a New York team
Geno Smith has traveled a bumpy road to get back to a familiar spot: the starting QB for a Big Apple squad. Mike Vaccaro takes a look at how Smith’s turbulent Jets tenure eventually led him to his first start for the Giants today at Oakland.
OAKLAND, Calif. — Much of the week he has been the angry storm cloud looming above all the other madness. Giants fans a r en’ t a ngry at Geno Smith, per se. They have nothing against him as a person, or as a quarterback. He’s just the guy who will line up Sunday afternoon behind center who isn’t Eli Manning. And Smith brings a lot of baggage to this. A lot of baggage. He is 12-18 in 30 games as a starter. He has 28 touchdowns and 38 interceptions for his career. He has fumbled 17 times.
He became the Jets’ No. 1 quarterback because of one of the most insidious coaching decisions ever: Rex Ryan allowing Mark Sanchez to get mauled at the end of an exhibition game. Smith lost the job because of one of the most insidious locker room soap operas ever, getting his jaw broken by a teammate he allegedly owed money to.
And he did all this in full view of Giants fans, across t he river, wearing the green vestments of the Jets, who are normally the ne’er-do-well brother in this relationship yet have looked downright functional based on the past week. Here’s the thing, though: It wasn’t always so about Geno.
In fact, in his fifth game in the NFL, there were quite a few folks — certainly in Florham Park — who thought they might have actually f ound the franchise rock upon which to f inally build a modicum of hope.
Remember? It was a Monday night, in Atlanta. The Jets were 2-2, with a couple of scratched-out home wins against the Greg Schiano (and Darrelle Revis) Buccaneers and Bills alternated with one tough road loss (in New England) and one gruesome one (in Tennessee). Smith had been especially awful in Nashville the week before, throwing two interceptions, losing two fumbled, getting sacked five times in a 38-13 mauling.
But he had already been terrific in leading the Jets to the brink of a stunner at the old Georgia Dome, playing turnover-free football, leading the Jets to a 27-14 lead two minutes deep into the fourth quarter before Matt Ryan and company stormed back, finally taking a 28-27 lead with 2:02 left in the game.
“The coaches told me to go out there and let it rip and play with no conscience,” Smith would say later.
“There was no Disney pep talk,” guard Willie Colon said. “We didn’t have no time for that. Good offenses get it done.”
And here came Geno: a 12-yard pass, a 13-yarder, a 9-yarder, all while the clock melted down and the rabid Dome crowd tried to unnerve him. But he seemed immovable, emotionally and physically. He kept the ball for 8, handed it off, then, seeing something at the line, audibled to a run, handed it to Bilal Powell, and put the Jets in perfect position for what happened next: a 43-yard field goal by Nick Folk as time expired.
Now, in the moment, it mattered little that the Falcons, picked as a Super Bowl team by some, were about to have a total implosion and go 4-12. Nobody could know that. What seemed clear is that something had happened for the Jets that Monday night in Atlanta. Geno had arrived.
“It was always a dream of mine since I was a kid to be in those situations, to take my team down to get a last-second field goal or touchdown,” Smith said.
And it wasn’t an isolated incident: Smith threw for a touchdown and passed for one in a 30-27 win over the Patriots two weeks later. He led the Jets to an upset win over New Orleans. In the season finale his second year, Ryan’s f inal game as coach, he threw a perfect game: a 158.3 rating thanks to 358 passing yards, three TDs, no picks.
“He could be a terrific quarterback in this league for a long time,” Ryan insisted.
But that, in so many ways, was that. The Jets hired a new coach in Todd Bowles, brought in a veteran QB in Ryan Fitzpatrick, and though Bowles insisted from Day 1 that Smith was his quarterback, it always seemed Smith had a tenuous at best hold on the job. Then came Aug. 11, 2015. Smith had noticed that his teammate, backup linebacker IK Enemkpali, had been giving him the silent treatment in camp. He asked why. It turns out that when Smith had canceled on a promised appearance at a camp Enemkpali ran in Pflugerville, Texas, he wound up stiffing Enemkpali on a $600 bill. Smith agreed to pay the money back. Then never did.
As much as anything he ever did on the field, this is the incident that will haunt Smith his whole career — and he was the victim, after Enemkpali sucker-punched him in the jaw, fracturing it in two places.
The easy comparison, as it’s been for all Jets quarterbacks for 13 years was this: Could anyone ever imagine a teammate cold-cocking Eli Manning? Or Manning giving any teammate reason to (even a bad reason)?
So Smith’s career careened toward limbo. He’s played in three games since: In relief of Fitzpatrick, who injured himself early in a game in (ironically) Oakland on Nov. 1, 2015, a game the Raiders dominated 34-20 though Smith played adequately (two TDs, one pick), and also on Oct. 17, 2016, a 28-3 loss at Arizona. And in his most recent start, a week after that, he threw a touchdown and looked good early against the Ravens in what became a 24-16 win.
But he also hurt his right knee, which initially drew the wrath of Jets legend Joe Namath, who questioned Smith’s toughness; a day later it was revealed Smith tore his ACL. Namath apologized, and returned to being the looming shadow that haunts all Jets quarterbacks, Smith most recently (and prominently).
And now he works on the other side of town. At 4:25 p.m. Sunday, he’ll get another chance that nobody on that side of town really wanted him to have. Nothing personal.