NEW YORK — Geno Smith was the Jets’ starting quarterback for all 16 games of his rookie season.
He threw 12 touchdowns and 21 interceptions. He was sacked 43 times and completed a pedestrian 55% of his passes. With a QBR of 41, a quarterback rating of 66.5 and an even 8-8 record, the team’s second-round draft pick in 2013 had done very little in his first year to prove to the Jets that he could yank them out of the quarterback-induced misery that had defined so much of the club’s history.
His second year was worse. Smith was fined $12,000 after cursing out a fan during a game, got benched during a shutout loss in Week 5 and missed a team meeting while he was at the movies, explaining his absence by saying that he didn’t really understand how time zones worked. The Jets went 3-10 in games started by Smith during the 2014 season, and when he showed up the next year, his broken dreams were matched by the broken jaw he received from teammate IK Enemkpali’s locker room punch.
