Best of the Jets on WFAN: Can Geno Smith win eight games?

**Craig Carton** (0:00)
I guess we'll start off with what the Jets did on Saturday. And was Saturday or Friday? I can't, I think it was Friday.

**Chris McMonigle** (0:06)
It was Friday.

**Craig Carton** (0:08)
You know, it was exactly what you want from Geno Smith.
You want all completions. You want six different receivers. You had a play action pass that ended up turning into a touchdown after starting the series on first down with runs. These are the kinds of things that I think Frank is gonna bring to Geno and give him an opportunity to really be a success. I mean, if Geno can stay upright and stay healthy and the pass blocking looks good, I think that, you know, he should be able to have a really decent year. I'm not sitting here telling you he's gonna have an MVP year, but I'm gonna tell you he's gonna have a competent year as long as he stays healthy. Because that's the way the offense looks when it's humming. And I know it's only preseason. It's the first foray for Geno. So I look at it as a, you know, a hundred percent positive.
They didn't have obviously, Brice Hall out there. But what you saw is you saw AD. Mitchell catching a ball. You saw Garrett Wilson catching a ball. You obviously have a tight end scoring a touchdown. You have running backs catching balls. I mean, this is exactly the type of offense that Frank has run, both in Philadelphia and Indianapolis and actually San Diego as well. If you want to go that far back.

**Boomer Esiason** (1:23)
Yeah, and Geno is the key to this team being anywhere near relevant. I know the quarterback is always going to be that.
But I mean, it's just I also think we're so used to seeing terrible quarterback play with the Jets that even halfway competent quarterback play looks like Super Bowl winning MVP quarterback play. I really do believe that. That there's just when we're looking at Geno Smith play the way that he does in a Jets uniform, like, wow, I mean, I really haven't even seen this. You know, Aaron Rodgers and he came back that second year did have some very good statistical games and still look like he could play. But if the Jets want to win games, he's got to stay upright and he's got to play well because there's still not enough around this team and the coaching staff that has been much improved. But still the head coach is going into his second year after a horrible first year that I think could make up for the fact that if they had an injured quarterback or a guy that was playing like he did last year for the Raiders. But I don't see that. I was a little bit worried with the off season stuff, but I haven't seen that and obviously it looked great in this preseason game. And I know that it means nothing in the grand scheme of things. But if Geno Smith had come out and it looked terrible early on in this preseason, that would have been a huge storyline. So I don't want to hear people just smash down the fact that he looks really good and say it's only preseason football. If it looked terrible, people will be screaming about it.

**Craig Carton** (2:42)
You know, he actually looked good in practice.
Everything that Frank said about him in his press conference was, I thought it was a little over the top, quite frankly. But obviously, if they want to win, he's got to play at this level. That's all there is to it. Then you'll hear people talking about, well, why don't you just start playing club neck, you know, get ready for next year. No, no, no, no, you can't, you know, you have, you have, what, 63 guys on a team, and everyone is looking at the quarterback, and everybody right now at this moment believes that Geno's the guy. And it's the most important position in all of sport.
It's the most important position in the game of football for sure. And, you know, if he's not on the field, then everybody else is going to think that they're going to have to go through a rookie kind of trying to take over this. And that's not what Aaron Glenn wants. That's not what the coaching staff wants. And that's certainly not what the players want. Regardless of, you know, how hard it is to get behind, you know, a late stage quarterback compared to a young kid that have shown a little bit of flash. But that kid has got such a long way to go. And right now, as they get ready to start the season, they think that they are going to be a reasonably good team because this offense is going to be significantly better than it was last year.