The cruel reminders of yesteryear cascaded down on Geno Smith during the early part of the Green and White practice Saturday night. He has a mountain to climb to rally Jets fans and an unforgiving MetLife Stadium with a zero-tolerance policy against turnovers to his side.
And so, though Smith has enjoyed an interception-free summer, the boobirds who demand that he drive the so-called Jets Porsche nowhere near as recklessly as Sheldon Richardson might have savaged him on several occasions, most notably following a Calvin Pace strip-sack fumble that Calvin Pryor recovered.
With friends like that, who needs enemies indeed?
I understand it’s been an exasperating four years without a playoff berth, and an exasperating two years with Smith, but c’mon.
Booing the guy for a fumble at an early-August practice? Give me — and give him — a break.
“I had a smile on my face,” Smith said. “The camera should have zoomed in on me, I had a big smile on my face, man.
“You’d think we were on the road today.”
He was smiling as he said it.
“I think two years, I’ve developed some really tough skin,” Smith said, “so I know how to handle it now.”
He has a way to handle it now by throwing to Brandon Marshall, who beat Antonio Cromartie for a 35-yard TD and boxed out Darrelle Revis for a 1-yard TD catch. And the jeers, of course, turned to cheers.
“That’s when I thrive, man, that’s when I’m at my best,” Smith said.
By no means is he lobbying to play every game on the road.
His game plan is to rally his teammates to his side before he tries
to rally anyone else to his side.
“I’ve been through a lot for two years, and going into my third year … maybe my rookie year it might have fazed me, and I might have hung my head or it might have affected me negatively,” Smith said. “But at this point, it just rolls right off my back.”
He understands that the burden of proof is on his shoulders following 41 career turnovers.
“Hopefully they’re a little bit more patient during the season. … You gotta understand that the fans are going to be fans, and you don’t want to put too much emphasis on that,” Smith said.
“I don’t worry about it. I think it’s more important for my teammates to see how I react to it, more than anything.”
The strip-sack?
“If it was a game, I would have ran, but it was practice, and guys can’t touch me, they can’t tackle me, so you’re playing in between, you don’t really know really what to do,” Smith said.
Coach Todd Bowles cut him some slack before adding: “He’s just got to learn to protect the ball.”
The fact is the fate of the season hangs on Smith hanging on to the football, and if he doesn’t hang onto the football, he won’t hang on to his job.
“It is only practice, but you don’t want to have turnovers at all, no matter where you’re at, no matter if it’s sandlot football,” Smith said.
Before he began invoking his Marshall Plan, Smith threw behind Marshall deep downfield.
BOOOO!
“It was good to be able to work through a little bit of adversity,” Ryan Fitzpatrick said. “We’re not going to have one game where everything goes perfect.”
Smith was nearly intercepted by Cromartie.
BOOOO!
“I heard about the New York crowd, it’s a great crowd, but also it can be tough,” Marshall said. “We just got to do our job to keep ’em happy, and I think we’ll have a chance this year to do that.”
Maybe even at home.
