GENO: I THINK I CAN
Smith believes he can be quarterback engine that could
GENO Smith was knocked down, in the most humiliating way, by a teammate, and out he went, in came Ryan Fitzpatrick, and the rest is Jets history.
It is nine months after IK Enemkpali and Smith has gotten up, gotten up as Plan B until Fitzpatrick and the Jets end their contract impasse. But Smith has gotten up with an unyielding belief he will stand tall again and grab this franchise by the throat and lead it.
He is asked this question by The Post at his locker: Can you win with this team? “Yes,” Smith said. “I gain confidence from, from first of all my faith. Second of all my understanding that life is a process, the game is a process,” he said. “Go back in history, and you watch every single quarterback, they’ve all been the same process that I’m going through. And the ones who stuck it out, they ended up being good or great. Some have faltered along the way, but I don’t see myself as being one.”
Yes, even Peyton Manning and John Elway suffered growing pains, for what it’s worth. But Smith’s flight through the NFL has been turbulent enough with a missed Saturday night meeting here, a curse to a fan there and the Enemkpali jawbreaker elsewhere to require him to regain the trust of his teammates, coaches and organization.
“I think trust is something that has to be earned, and it’s something that you have to earn every single day,” Smith said. “It’s hard to gain trust, but it’s easy to lose trust. So my thing is: Every single day I’ve gotta prove it, that I’m trustworthy, to my teammates, to my coaches, to anyone else who’s watching.”
Other teams that need quarterbacks always are watching, and his year in purgatory and the unacceptable way he got there tends to make some forget Smith is just 25, with enough arm talent to be drafted in the second round in 2013.
The drafting of Christian Hackenberg in the second round this year means coach Todd Bowles will have four quarterbacks at the inn, and there is speculation Smith could be the odd man out. Except Smith would give the
Jets a better chance to win than Hackenberg and Bryce Petty were something to happen to Fitzpatrick, and the Jets are a win-now team that would be forfeiting the season with no experience at the most important position.
I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get rid of Geno Smith, who doesn’t wish he had started his NFL career in a place other than New York.
“I’m living one life,” he told The Post. “I can’t press a restart button or anything. I enjoy every single minute that I have in New York. I’m blessed to be drafted here. I believe this is a great city. I believe this is a great organization. So no, I wouldn’t. I believe that everything happens for a reason, and there’s a reason I’m here, so I appreciate being here, and I want to work hard and ultimately do great things here.”
He is noticeably bigger in the arms and chest, somewhere close to 230 pounds, 10 more pounds of muscle than he had when he entered as a rookie.
“I did come in pretty skinny, and every single offseason I kind of put it on myself to continue to build muscle, so I think maybe this year, I’ve taken a bigger step,” Smith said. “Part of it could have been like anger, so I’ve used that as a part of my chip on my shoulder, my edge type of deal, and just continue to work hard in the weight room, and hopefully it’s paying off.” Anger, why? “Just missing a season, f irst season that I’ve missed in my career,” he said. “I love to play the game. I hate not being out there, and the fact that I wasn’t able to go out there and compete with my teammates just really fueled me in the weight room.”
He is careful not to say the wrong thing, so when someone asks about the public support Fitzpatrick has in the locker room, Smith said, “I think they’ve always been supportive of myself as well. ... I don’t think t hat they’ve said anything negative about me. ... It doesn’t rub me the wrong way at all.”
What rubbed him the wrong way was a couple of questions from one beat reporter asking first if he wanted Fitzpatrick to re-sign followed immediately by a reminder that Fitzpatrick was his teammate. “Next question” was the next answer to the next attempted question by the reporter.
“It didn’t get under my skin,” Smith said. “He just asked a repeti- tive question that I had answered, and I guess he wanted to continue to ask that same question.”
Smith would be wise to study how Fitzpatrick, if and when he returns, handles the media blitz. In the meantime, this is his team again.
“At times I may have been overly confident, and I think that’s kind of my defense mechanism, whenever I feel like I need to go out and do something, I kind of stick my chest out. That’s kind of how I was raised,” Smith said. A message to Jets fans? “I can’t do anymore talking ,” Smith said .“The only talking I can do from here on out is between the white lines.”
If he ever can get between the white lines again here.