Easy come, easy go

Joining the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Giants in unexpected ineptitude is the Atlanta Falcons, falling to 1-4 after a mistake filled loss at home to the New York Jets. A blocked punt, a wasted 75-yard drive that petered out with a first and goal at the Jets 1-yard line as the first half ended, and a horse color tackle penalty after a long punt return along with a Matt Ryan fumble gave the Jets short field scoring opportunities. Add to that Geno Smith inexplicably committing not a single turnover while making his leash-bound passes count, and somehow you lose a game  everyone expected you to win on a field goal as time expired. 

Smith gained the expected overblown accolades after the game; no doubt he took to heart coach Rex Ryan’s veiled suggestion last week that he might be running out of patience with the new favorite. One of the fascinating aspects of the Geno Smith odyssey is not that he has yet to demonstrate a capacity to be an effective NFL starting quarterback (he now has one ”solid” performance to his credit), but that people thought he could be at all. I’m not saying that it is impossible for him to be the same caliber of, say, a Tarvaris Jackson—good enough to get you to 10 wins (actually, Jackson never won 10 games in a season), provided that the rest of the team is solid. But good enough to get you past the first round of the playoffs? Not likely. 

There are of course plenty of quarterbacks in this league who put up impressive numbers who always seem to be better than the alternative, but they always seem to be undone by that one bonehead play (Tony Romo). But when you have a quarterback who (this last game aside) makes bonehead play after bonehead play, and seems even worse than the previous starter the team was willing to put in a situation where he was likely to be injured just to get him out of the way, you have to wonder why no one saw this coming. And this is precisely the case with Mr. Smith. Even before the 2013 draft, observers were questioning his viability as a credible draft pick. ESPN Insider KC Joyner noted that 

“Smith had two of the best wide receivers in college football (Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey) and yet ESPN Stats & Information's research indicates that his average pass traveled only 7.7 yards downfield, which is the fewest air yards of any top quarterback prospect. The stats also show that in West Virginia's six losses, Smith completed fewer than a quarter of his throws that traveled 15 or more yards downfield and was off-target on more than half of such attempts.”

Despite a high completion percentage and a lot of yardage, 34 percent of his passes were thrown to or behind the line of scrimmage. Smith had “bust” written all over him. But that didn’t stop the New York Jets from drafting him in the second round, apparently based solely on his bloated numbers at West Virginia. This despite the fact that in what was likely the only cold weather game he ever played in college, he looked completely lost in a 38-14 loss to Syracuse in last year’s Pin Stripe Bowl. 

 

Smith has also been described as being “selfish” and having an inflated view of himself. His fall from the first round in the draft persuaded him it was his agent’s “fault,” so he fired him; Smith was said to feel people are “against” him, and this “colors” his perspective. This is why all the excuses he has been given by commentators to explain away his frequent mistakes makes it even more likely that he will not learn from those mistakes and improve in any substantial way—at least not in the way Jets fans assume. Smith is the kind of player who can easily let too much praise get into his head, just as he has been allowed to “justify” his mistakes. After a nice game in the balmy climes of Atlanta, it may be a lesson still to be learned. 

Meanwhile, Thaddeus Lewis, another “athletic” running-type quarterback with one game’s worth of experience (a 24-10 loss to a subpar Pittsburgh team last year), was elevated from the Buffalo Bill’s practice squad to the starting spot next week after EJ Manuel was lost to injury. Why? Because he gives the team the “best chance to win.” Hasn’t that phrase been done to death as an excuse to “excite” fans of mediocre teams with another “new school” quarterback?