The latest Geno Smith disrespect should send Jets fans on the offensive

Even if he didn’t play for the New York Jets, the modern NFL climate would have made it impossible for veteran quarterback Geno Smith to be irrelevant. 

Gone are the days when we’d see a random veteran quarterback starting on a rebuilding team and shrug. FanSided asked 50 of its NFL experts to rank every quarterback, from the MVP frontrunners to those who will likely spend the year on a practice squad. 

Smith placed No. 32 of 93, which isn’t awful. Assuming that the Falcons’ Michael Penix Jr. starts Week 1, Smith is the fourth-worst starting quarterback. He’s ahead of only Penix (No. 34), the Cardinals’ Jacoby Brissett (No. 35), and the Browns’ Deshaun Watson (No. 42).

Ranking New York Jets veteran Geno Smith as the NFL’s No. 32 quarterback is absurdly disrespectful

The issue isn’t that Smith ranked as the NFL’s fourth-worst starting quarterback. We’d personally rather have him over the Titans’ Cam Ward (No. 23), only because the 2025 No. 1 pick now has to play for Robert Saleh and Brian Daboll, but that’s solely preference. 

First off, Fernando Mendoza (No. 30) should have been ineligible because he hasn’t played a game and is expected to be the Raiders’ third-string quarterback. But rookies being placed above veterans on lists like these is a trend league-wide.

No one is disputing that Smith is a replacement-level starter at best. He’s a band-aid for a franchise with a long history of quarterback issues. But why wasn’t Joe Flacco (No. 28) in that tier, too? Instead, Flacco landed in the “game manager” group despite being a 41-year-old backup. 

The fact that Tua Tagovailoa placed one spot above Smith is even worse, even if the voting occurred before Tua’s dreadful preseason ended. At least Smith had the excuse of playing behind an atrocious offensive line in Las Vegas last year. Tagovailoa wasted a strong core — De’Von Achane and Jaylen Waddle aren’t exactly slouches — and was so bad that the Dolphins were willing to accept an NFL-record $99.2 million in dead money just to get rid of him.

Tagovailoa scored a 6.40 to Smith’s 6.28, meaning there wasn’t a drastic gap. It’s nonetheless difficult to understand why anyone would decide they’d want him over Smith, especially given the former’s injury history. Is it because of the “LOL Jets” factor that follows the franchise around like a demon?

It's an unfortunate analysis of Smith, but that’s been the case all offseason. Tagovailoa and Mendoza over Geno is certainly a choice, though he’ll likely be the only one of the three with an early opportunity to prove his critics wrong.

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