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Second round draft pick Geno Smith has taken a “giant leap” in his development since coming to this Jets. This according to Geno Smith . . .
“I’ve already made a giant leap,” Smith told NFL Network’s Andrew Siciliano on Monday from the NFL Rookie Symposium. “Coming from a spread system where the biggest transition for me is going to be the footwork. It’s not as if I can’t do it, it’s the fact that I haven’t done it enough. The good amount of reps that I got in rookie camp, minicamp, OTAs has helped me make that leap and transition, and make giant strides.”
That’s his opinion. His quarterback coach, David Lee, doesn’t share it.
“His steps — dropbacks — his mechanics footwork wise weren’t dialed in the way they’ll have to be at this level,” Lee said towards the end of the end of team’s mini-camp. “I think some of that is your five and seven step drops, it’s all new to him.
“We knew that it’s not an easy process.
I have to be honest, I’d go with Lee’s assessment over Smith’s.
“His system at West Virginia, there’s no similarities there whatsoever,” Lee said. “Unlike Russell Wilson, who was in the West Coast system for three years at N.C. State under Dana Bible … Geno hasn’t had that luxury. It’s been a brand-new world ever day, just struggling with the basic things.”
I don’t think anybody watching the Jets spring practices would say Smith took a “giant leap” during that time.
With Smith, it’s a constant rhetoric game, and I’m starting to get tiresome. “Giant leap?” C’mon man – He’s had so few practices. It doesn’t happen that fast . . .
I saw this headline on the internet today that read, “Parcells regrets end of Pats tenure.”
“I regret leaving New England. Had we done things differently … ” the coach told USA Today. “I had a good, young team there. I hated to leave that team because I knew what we could do.”
I don’t think he regretted it.
He hated the fact that he didn’t have final say on player personnel, and he wanted out.
The fact that personnel guy Bobby Grier and owner Robert Kraft were forcing players on him, really irked Parcells, and he didn’t want to be there anymore.
And if you notice, he said, “had we done things differently.”
That is a major caveat in the quote.
Basically he was saying again that he didn’t like the set-up.
So he really didn’t regret leaving New England based on how Grier and Kraft were forcing players on him.
If he had the set-up he wanted up there, and had left at the time, there might have been some regrets.
But he didn’t want to work one more day with the front office set-up they had.
That is why he bolted for the New York Jets, where owner Leon Hess gave him the total control of the football operation.
And let him “shot for the groceries,” as he said at the time.
So this story is much adu about nothing.
The only thing Parcells really regrets is that they he didn’t have control of personnel in New England, not that he left the gig early . . .
June 24, 2013
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