Geno Smith at RCMH
The night of the NFL Draft, Geno Smith made a 2013 playoff prediction for the Jets. After a few weeks in New Jersey with the team, does he still believe it?
“Yeah, I honestly do,” Smith said, per Dan Hanzus of NFL.com at the NFLPA Rookie Premiere in Los Angeles late last week. “And I think all 32 teams in the league have the same goal. And I don’t think that’s a negative thing, I think it’s all positive. I think we’re working toward that. I’m not making any promises. There’s a lot of work to be done, but I think every team should go in with the mindset of winning the Super Bowl.”
Hanzus went on to write that :
The Geno Smith we saw Thursday at an NFLPA Rookie Premiere event was fully engaged. There was no cellphone in sight. He played with children at Sunrise Elementary School and looked comfortable as he spoke with the media.
Could it be an act put up by a rookie who knows his every move is being scrutinized? Maybe. But this Smith was the same guy we interviewed the day before the draft in New York. He seems genuine.
According to ESPN NY, Smith realizes he needs to be cautious about his predictions and with the media in New York, knowing the team he plays for is somewhat known by them. “I’ve already gotten in trouble for saying some things about playoffs and things, which I don’t regret,” the rookie quarterback said Sunday on SiriusXM Radio at the Rookie Premiere event. “I don’t think I’ll go as far as being as bold as Joe [Namath] was.”
When asked about the microscope he’s been under through the Draft process and since getting drafted by New York, Smith told reporters that he was surprised by the attention he’s received.
“I don’t think I’m a bad guy, I don’t think I’m some of the things they try to make me out to be,” Smith said of the recent articles about him on Yahoo! Sports and elsewhere. ”It’s a part of the media. The one thing that I understand is you can’t take it personally. Those guys have jobs and the key to their jobs is to sell papers and to keep the fans looking. So they’re going to spin things and try to make an interesting story out of something that may not be so interesting.”
Smith was asked about how the Jets quarterback competition changed in the last week, and Smith shared his concerns for his teammate and his well wishes.
“Oh man … I got off the plane, I heard about it, I called [quarterbacks] coach David Lee, I texted David [Garrard]. I just wished him well,” said Smith. “I know how those things are … I understand that he wanted to be part of the team, but his body was breaking down on him, and he made the decision that was best for himself, and I wish him well.”
Brian Bassett, theJetsBlog.com
Smith is exceptionally bright. He might not be the classic overly extroverted quarterback, but that doesn’t make him a bad guy or a bad quarterback. Everything we’ve researched about him is that he can be quiet, that he’s happy to spend his time relaxing and that he’s kept out of overt trouble while he was in college.
The Jets need a quarterback who can stand in the pocket confidently, put trust in his receivers and then deliver the ball to the open player … that’s all they need. They don’t need someone who can throw three picks as easily as they can burn up three graphs on Page Six.
Is that an over-simplification of the role? Absolutely, but in the end Rex Ryan is going to field a solid to good defense and the offense needs to be able to utilize the talents of the players they do have and do so in the most judicious manner. While there’s a lot of uncertainty in what the Jets will field this year, there’s also a lot of promise. If a quarterback can hit the open receiver and get out of the way of the running game, then they’ve got a chance to be competitive this season.
Geno Smith talks to Fox Sports about how he needs to prepare this summer as he enters the Jets QB competition.
- Let’s not jump on Idzik already. [GGN]
- Stephen Hill looking to make the jump in year two. [NY Jets]
- Tommy Bohanon talks about transitioning to the pros. [NY Jets]
- ESPN looks at the backup QB market. [ESPN NY]
- Sanchez wishes Garrard nothing but the best. [NY Jets]
Bent, theJetsBlog.com
Click the BGA link at the top of the page to look back at some of the scouting work I’ve done on some of the other signings the Jets have made since the end of the season.
Griffin made his first NFL appearance with the Jets last December but did not feature on offense. Prior to that, he had been a last minute cut for the Bengals in 2011 and spent time with the Omaha Nighthawks in the UFL. He’s listed at 5-11 and 208 and played his college football in the North East, with three years at Northeastern and one at UMass.
After the jump, I’ll be reviewing his career so far and looking in detail at footage from the 2011 season to see what he’s capable of and assess his chances of competing for a roster spot. To read more of this story, click here
Here’s an interesting nugget from ESPN Cleveland’s Tony Grossi:
Hoyer signed with the Browns last week, but the fact the Jets were reportedly interested speaks volumes about how the Jets feel about their quarterback situation in light of David Garrard’s decision to retire.
Hoyer has thrown just 96 passes in his NFL career, most of which has been spent backing up Tom Brady in New England. He started the first game of his NFL career for the Cardinals against the 49ers in Week 17, throwing for 225 yards and a touchdown in a 27-13 defeat.
Update: Manish Mehta of the Daily News is suggesting that this report may be inaccurate:
This week, John Idzik made it clear that the Jets would look to field roster spots this season through undrafted rookie free agents. Former California University safety Rontez Miles went undrafted, we’ll take a look at Miles in this post.
Rontez Miles
Height: 6’0″ Weight: 203 lbs
Hands: 10 1/4″ Arm Length: 32 7/8″
40 Yard Dash: 4.62 3 Cone Drill: 6.97
Vertical Jump: 36.5″ Broad Jump: 123.0″
BIOGRAPHY: In short, he went to high school with Rob Gronkowski, and Miles was recruited by many big schools out of high-school, but he choose Kent State to play with his step-brother Vondre Griffin. In Miles’ first year, Griffin was dismissed from the program (but was eventually cleared) of the charges, and Miles decided to leave the program with Griffin no longer there. After a year in a warehouse taking classes at a community college, Miles then enrolled at California University of PA. Where he earned PSAC Freshman of the Year, four All PSAC-West selections, back to back Defensive Player Of The Year awards, and two-time Division II All American honors. This USA Today article gives a great picture.
STRENGTHS: Good size and looks extremely athletic. Very lean and hard build. Miles is known as a punishing hitter, and is extremely willing to get physical against the run and he’s a good tackler and wraps up well. Good diagnosis skills, and decent against the pass.
WEAKNESSES: He will have get much more technically sound as he moves up to the NFL. Sometimes can overpursue the play and can take bad angles at times. He sometimes tries too hard to make a big hit and that might get him in trouble in the NFL.
CONCLUSION: It’s impossible to look at some of his highlights and not be impressed. At the same time, it’s maddening because his it is impossible to judge how he’ll fare against a much more talented pool of players. Miles has all the athletic skill and the physical nature that could make him a menace in the defensive backfield, but he’s going to need to get much more technically sound and not rely on his brute strength and athleticism to make plays in the NFL. He’s a great prospect for the Jets to give a try, but some dedicated work and roster stowing might pay dividends over time.
According to Liz Mullen of Sports Business Journal, Jets top draft pick Dee Milliner has chosen his new representation after firing his agency after what he apparently deemed poor draft results.
Milliner fired Impact Sports back on May 10, though news didn’t reach journalists until late last week. Per Mullen’s report, the former Alabama corner has already signed with Pat Dye & Bill Johnson — and this has happened after waiting the necessary five-business-day waiting period expired. Dye & Johnson’s agency merged a few years back with Jimmy Sexton’s larger group. Under that larger banner some other Jets of note represented are Rex Ryan and Calvin Pace.
When Milliner made the switch, he has become the second Jets rookie to fire his representation, after West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith parted ways with Select Sports in late April.
Brian Bassett, theJetsBlog.com
I hazarded a guess that Jay-Z might be sniffing around another New York athlete, but that seems to not be the case. Good to know that at least this is behind him. It’s extremely rare that two players drafted by the Jets would both leave their agency after disappointing draft results, but there’s a first time for everything. It seemed an odd move to fire an agency over four draft spots, but we don’t know the full story there.
A number of Jets players are already signed and now that this is settled we’ll expect that they will all get into camp on time and signed with their new agencies.
Quinton Coples got a wake up call a few weeks ago from the Jets coach, but he’s working it through.
Neither player nor coach have talked about the perceived lack of effort with Coples saying it was a “first-time experience for me” and that he has never been called out before. He called it a “wake-up” call.
“I wouldn’t say I got comfortable, it was during a drill, it was videotaped and I could have given better effort,” Coples said. “The next day when we came back here, I gave a better effort to make sure it wouldn’t happen again.”
Brian Bassett, theJetsBlog.com
Coples is so physically talented and it’s good to see that he realized that Rex is watching him closely and his coach expects nothing less than his best. Coples led the team as a rookie with 5.5 sacks, and if he adjusts to his new role next year and can be more featured because of it, I’d expect him to double that number this year.
Mike Goodson remains on the Jets roster, despite being slapped with weapons and drugs charges on Friday, but offensive lineman Willie Colon doesn’t expect that to be the case much longer.
“It’s one of the things where it’s zero-tolerance with stuff like that,” Colon told the Daily News Saturday at the Alliance for Lupus Research walk at MetLife Stadium. “It’s sad. Mike could have been huge for us.”
“He wasn’t around a lot, so I didn’t really get to see him a lot. For the most part, I was kind of anticipating seeing how he was going to do in OTAs,” added Colon.
The lineman, who also signed as a free agent this offseason, said the team hadn’t said anything to the players about Goodson yet and he heard about it through the news. “A lot of guys were upset. They knew the type of ballplayer (he was),” Colon said.
Jordan
This entire situation stinks. I was kind of looking forward to see what Goodson could bring to the Jets. Thank the lord we traded for Ivory. If we didn’t and we didn’t draft a RB, our RB’s would be Powell, Mcknight, and maybe Griffin? There’s a small chance that maybe this whole thing will carry over to the end of the season and he wont miss any playing time. But the chances of that happening are slim to none. If we keep him he’ll most likely be suspended 4-6 games. Let’s see how this plays out.
