Two months ago, I said the Jets should bench Geno Smith and start Michael Vick. This wasn’t exactly a Woodward and Bernstein-type scoop. In fact, it would’ve been about as surprising as if I’d said the Broncos should sit Peyton Manning and play Brock Osweiler (Osweiler, don’t grab your helmet again, this is just a hypothetical).
At the time, Gang Green was 1-3, and needed to win the vast majority of their remaining games to secure a playoff spot -- and save Rex Ryan’s job -- and Vick clearly couldn’t have played any worse than Smith. Ryan continued to start Smith for the next four weeks, by which time the QB and his teammates had stamped out even the slightest hope of postseason play.
Would things have been different if Vick started those games? Could any QB consistently win when the Jets’ was pass defense was so ineffective that it could best be termed the Geno Smith of defensive backfields?
Anyway, that’s all in the past. The Jets’ present, meanwhile, is downright ugly, and the short-term future is basically unbearable (if you didn’t think the long-term future was bright, against a veritable mountain range of evidence to the contrary, you would’ve given up on being a Jets fan long ago). Could things get any worse if Ryan gave Smith the starting job back for the remaining five weeks?
Yes, I understand how poorly Smith has played to date, and no, I don’t put much stock in the fact that he looked competent in his brief run on Monday night in Detroit. Not exactly high-pressure territory when you come in down 28 with 10 minutes left on game clock.
Vick is clearly better than Smith at the moment. Maybe he leads the team to 1 or 2 more wins than Smith would. What does that too, besides hurt their draft position? We know what Vick is, and we know for certain he’s not the long-term answer for Gang Green.
Is Smith? Probably not. But why not find out for sure over the next five games? Not long ago, the Jets thought enough of Smith to make him the 39th pick of the 2013 NFL Draft. And history shows that plenty of eventual star QBs were terrible in their first year or two.
U.S. & World
The Jets’ season is effectively done. So is Ryan, and probably GM John Idzik as well. Is Smith? There’s only one way to find out. Besides, when you’ve lost as much as Gang Green has, what else can there possibly be to lose?
