Vick on Geno

I guess you can make this argument, or you could consider the difficulty of the schedule. There are a couple of ways to look at it.

Mike Vick was on the NFL Network as a guest this week.

He was asked about Geno Smith, who I guess he was brought in to be a mentor to last year. A $5 million mentor? Good job if you can get it.

Vick was asked about Geno Smith as a quarterback, and where he is at right now.

“I think without struggles there’s no progress and I think that is what he’s been through in his first two years,” Vick said.

I like that quote. I reminds me of the famous Friedrich Nietzsche quote – “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

I agree with Vick’s premise. Smith’s trial-by-fire over his first two years in the league should help him. He has seen so much.

However, while he should improve in some areas, just the mere fact you have a chance to learn on the job, and get valuable experience, doesn’t mean you will necessarily advance in all areas.

There are certain aspects of reading defenses and pocket presence that often experience doesn’t have much of an impact on. Honestly, there are guys who have been around for six, seven, eight years, and there are issues in these departments that are still quite apparent.

Time often doesn’t heal all wounds in some areas of quarterback play.

We will see what improvements Smith makes in Year Three. I do think Chan Gailey’s offense will help him. It’s simpler and more QB-friendly than past systems. I’m never comfortable saying, “simpler,” because that makes people question intelligence. Geno is very bright, but sometimes some of these systems are so involved they can overwhelm young quarterbacks. I think Marty Mornhinweg is a solid offensive coach, but something was amiss between the OC and the QB. There were too many timeouts with the play-clock running out. I’m not blaming Marty, but perhaps it was too wordy, too many moving part.

Let’s get back to Vick.

“I watched [Geno] mature a lot down the stretch,” Vick said about last season. “He started to get it.”

Perhaps, but we can’t forget the strength of schedule aspect to this argument.

The Jets’ schedule leading up to their bye-week in Week 11 was brutal. And they finished this stretch with a 2-8 record, and one of the wins was engineered by Vick over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The schedule lightened up. The first game out of the bye-week was that Jets debacle in Detroit, getting blown out by Buffalo. Vick had a rough game, so they went back to Geno for the rest of the year.

They lost to Miami the following contest in a game they mainly ran the football.

Geno rebounded and had a decent game in an overtime loss to a lower-tier Minnesota team. He had an ugly Pick Six early, but calmed down and played fairly well.

Then the Jets barely got by an awful Tennessee club 16-11 in a very sloppy game. Geno was pedestrian in this contest.

Geno played fairly well in a close loss to New England, and then in a win at Miami in Week 17.

Was there some improvement. Probably, but you have to consider the schedule lightening up.

So the bottom line is it remains to be seen if Geno takes these steps, Vick, and many others, think he will, in Year Three.

June 17, 2015

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