✈️ Jets Air Traffic Report Week 4: Geno Smith’s biggest flaw finally surfaces

After going 31 of 37 for nearly 330 yards, three touchdowns, and zero interceptions last week, I made the claim that there was something seriously wrong with Smith and the New York Jets' pass game.

Friends and family looked at me like I was the human version of an ASPCA commercial.

This past Sunday, the Chicago Bears showed the football world what I've been weary of.

There are no excuses for this latest passing display

Say what you want about how disadvantaged the Jets were coming into this game, but if your backup running back averages 4.2 yards per carry, you have no basis for an excuse.

Since that's exactly what Braelon Allen averaged on Sunday, the run game is not to be blamed for this one. For those who need more convincing, that's both a full yard more than Breece Hall's season average and matches the mark Derrick Henry currently maintains.

So unless you'd complain about having King Henry being in the Jets' backfield, let's focus on what matters.

Geno Smith must be driving Frank Reich insane

My pass game chart this week was simple. Fifteen throws, eight completions, and a complete game of proof that Smith is likely giving Frank Reich ulcers with each passing week.

Reich's playbook, which is a variation of the West Coast offense, is no stranger to quick throws. That said, the ultimate goal is to create mismatches. With a Baryshnikov at receiver like Garrett Wilson, that task isn't hard.

However, the scheme is irrelevant if, when those matchups are created, the man responsible for throwing to them turns his nose up at the idea.

Imagine one day your child expresses an interest in painting. As a loving parent wanting to support your kid's every ambition, you make a plan.

You do your research on the craft, create a list of what they'll need, head to Michael's, spend an entire week's pay on supplies, rearrange your weekend, transform your living room into a studio that would make a Brooklyn hipster blush, get your young child into the smock, sit them down in front of their easel, and prepare to watch a prodigy at work.

Knowing all the while they will never know how much effort you put into setting them up for success, but at the same time, carrying a feeling that it will all be worth it when you've raised the next Picasso, all on an executive assistant's salary.

And just as you drop onto your couch with coffee in hand and pride in your heart, they start playing with an old shoe instead.

In case the analogy isn't clear-- you are Reich, Smith is your child, painting is a touchdown, and checkdowns are shoes.

Of his fifteen pass attempts, Smith threw to his first read or his checkdown twelve times on Sunday. It doesn't take a football savant to know that in a game where the goal is to move a ball down a field, that ball probably has to be moved down that field.

So far this season, Smith ranks 27th among all quarterbacks in Average Intended Air Yards (IAY), the advanced metric that measures how far quarterbacks are throwing the ball downfield.

If you take nothing else from the first four weeks of the Jets' season, let it be that.

The same two possible explanations from last week's report remain

Either Smith is overcorrecting for his pick-happy past, or Aaron Glenn is running on a platform in Year 2 that playing it safe is the solution to the team's volatile history-- a notion that has trumped Reich's pleas for Smith to air it out.

Based on what Glenn's postgame comments suggest about his involvement in the offense, fingers point to Smith.

The Jets' first third quarter drive felt personal

After completing a whopping three passes on a total of ten pass plays called in the first half, the Jets ran the ball five straight times. It's hard to explain if you didn't watch the game, but it felt intentional.

My theory? After shaking Smith in the locker room at halftime, begging him to throw the ball farther than ten yards, Reich decided to send the message publicly.

If you don't want to do what I'm asking, I'll take the ball out of your hands.

Twenty minutes later, with 9:16 left in the game, Smith finally got the message. With the first ball thrown beyond fifteen yards all afternoon, Smith hit Isaiah Williams on a post route for what looked like the easiest 58-yard touchdown of his career.

The Jets wouldn't get the ball back after that, and the Bears would seal the win with an eighteen-play drive. Rendering the above a futile example of too little, too late.

It was just the latest episode this season of Smith waiting too long, or in some games not at all, to operate this pass game the way it's intended to be run, as opposed to using it as a proving ground to show the world that, even though he's losing the games, at least he doesn't throw to the other team anymore.

The serial optimist in me hopes this one play left an imprint on Smith that will finally revive his confidence and change the trajectory of this passing game.

The Jets fan and quarterback in me... remains skeptical.

Overall Rating: 4.4 ⭐️

Like seeing a friend get sober. You're proud of them, but they're also not nearly as fun. It's great that they're no longer ruining birthday parties, but right now you're in a bar fight, and chairs need to start flying in order to win.

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