Rex Ryan Not Concerned About Geno Smith’s Lateness

Oct 5, 2014; San Diego, CA, USA; New York Jets quarterback

(7) walks to the lockerroom after the Jets were shutout 31-0 against the San Diego Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

For those of you who might have missed it yesterday, everybody’s favorite beat reporter Manish Mehta, broke a story about Geno Smith being late to meetings on Saturday, prior to the thrashing the Jets took at the hands of the Chargers. He seemed unprepared, and eventually got benched. So, the question appears, did being late to the meeting have anything to do with it?

This was Rex Ryan’s reaction when asked about it during yesterday’s meeting with the media:

Well first of all as far as the discipline, we have things in place for when meetings are missed. We have things in place here and he will be treated no different than any other player. With that being said, I am not going to share with you exactly what that is, but there is a structure for that here. I will say this, I believe this. It was an honest mistake. He got confused. We had on the schedule, it was East Coast time, and I think that for whatever reason, that got him. Normally, I will say this, I think he showed up probably about five to 10 minutes after the meeting ended, but the information that was covered in the meeting, that we went over in the meeting was covered by Coach (David) Lee and Coach (Marty) Mornhinweg. With Geno, he has never missed a meeting ever. He is generally one of the first guys to arrive, if not the first, and he is right there in the front row, so I can’t miss him. So I believe it is just a one-time thing, but it was just an honest mistake.

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He never considered benching his starter because of it:

No, I never thought that. This is just a mistake that the young man made. It is not different than I am sure every player on any team eventually makes a mistake. That’s a fact. It was unexpected, obviously. I mean Geno like I said, he is there before anybody. So it was obviously, it’s a one-time thing that has happened.

The teams from the East Coast keep themselves on East Coast time a lot, to keep their internal clock the way it is when they are at home. This type of mistake is bound to happen once in a while. Geno Smith did, it happened, and he was apparently very upset with himself for doing it. It won’t be a trend, so I think coach Ryan’s take is fair here.