NY Jets: Devin Smith may not be a bust after all

For the NY Jets and rookie Devin Smith, a lot of analysts were ready to label him a ‘bust’ after his lackluster start to the 2015 season, but he bounced back in a major way.

To say the rookie 2nd round pick Devin Smith has had a rough start to his career is an understatement. Smith got injured early in Jets’ training camp with broken ribs forcing him to miss critical and invaluable time building chemistry and learning the playbook.

Then Smith finally got healthy enough to start running, catching passes and hopefully make an impact with the Jets. Unfortunately he did make an impact, but not in a positive way. Smith struggled with missed assignments, drops and critical errors.

Which all amounted to the New York media throwing the patented bust label around after a fumbled kickoff return in the Buffalo game and some critical drops against the Houston Texans. Head coach Todd Bowles faced a series of questions including about playing players due to pedigree more so then their production on the field.

We knew that dance looked familiar. Must be an Akron thing. pic.twitter.com/qU9ZPQY9pm

— New York Jets (@nyjets) November 29, 2015

Smith whipped out his best LeBron James impersonation after notching his first receiving touchdown of his young career with the Jets. Smith finished with 2 catches for 33 yards (including that touchdown grab) it’s not a record setting day by any means, but for Smith it’s a great start.

I mentioned it earlier, ‘several analysts wrote Smith off’ as I didn’t write him off necessarily but I’ll take some heat for my article last week: NY Jets: Devin Smith not ready for spotlight. I was upset and frustrated with the lack of production from the first year product and I’ll admit my fault. Perhaps we were all wrong about Smith.

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It’s easy to forget that he was injured and missed critical time to learn the system in the off season and it seems like he was rushed back into action. There’s no excuses being thrown around here, I still stand by the fact that he needs to improve his route running and his concentration with catching the football.

Maybe he is ready for the spotlight and really I’ll continue to say it the Jets are going to eventually need a third guy to get the football because you can’t just rely the totality of your offense on two guys, but it’s working right now. Hopefully week in and week out we can continue to see these progressions from Smith and see his slow integration into the Jets’ offense.