Gone but not forgotten, the quarterback competition that wasn’t continues to linger for the Jets. Especially since presumed starter Geno Smith successfully ducked the media last week, when the dispute hit full boil.
To summarize, coach Rex Ryan consistently said there’s an open competition for the starting job, and Mike Vick consistently said it’s not an open competition and that the job belongs to Geno Smith. Eventually, offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg admitted that Smith has the inside track to keeping the job.
On Wednesday, Smith finally answered questions about the situation.
“We’re all on the same page,” Smith told reporters. “I think it’s all a matter of semantics. You put a word here or there and it changes the whole sentence. We understand what’s going on. There’s competition at every single spot. We’re all competing daily to get better. We’re all pushing ourselves. We’re all pushing one another. And that’s really what’s going on. I don’t really know what the miscommunication is because from my vantage point, everyone’s on the same page.”
So everyone is on the same page that Smith is the starter, right? Not exactly, according to Smith.
“It’s that we’re going to compete every single day and we’re going to get better,” Smith said. “This game’s all about pushing yourselves and it’s all about not being complacent [and] not settling for less. Like I said, we’re going to compete hard to make this team better and that goes for every single guy on the team and every single guy in that quarterback room.”
But if there’s no competition to lose, then there’s no actual competition. Sure, Smith and Vick and Matt Simms and Tajh Boyd can compete among themselves to see who has the better day or series or whatever, but the top of the depth chart is locked in. And the only competition that could cause Smith to lose his spot will happen in September, when actual competition commences against another team.
So why didn’t Smith say that last week when the issue hit full boil instead of ducking out of the building?
“I didn’t leave the building,” Smith said. “I was watching film.”
Then again, he didn’t say whether he was watching film from security cameras that showed whether the media had left the premises.