Geno Smith and EJ Manuel get thrown to the wolves now, because the Jets and Bills and their respective fan bases are desperately seeking their own RG3 and Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson.
It has been a perfect storm of circumstances that brings us Smith versus Manuel today: the smashing success of the 2012 rookie QBs in a quarterback-driven league; the failure of Ryan Fitzpatrick, who wasn’t Jim Kelly in Buffalo, and of Mark Sanchez, who wasn’t even Mark Sanchez the past two seasons, much less Joe Namath.
It’s a beautiful thing to watch when a precocious quarterback acts and plays like he’s been there before even though he hasn’t.
Today is the flip side of that.
Today is the Diaper Bowl.
Smith isn’t ready for a motivated Mike Pettine, and Manuel isn’t ready for a motivated Rex Ryan.
Smith and Manuel serve as proxies for the football war between teacher (Ryan, the Jets coach) and student (Pettine, the Bills defensive coordinator).
If Pettine has gone to school, then count on Smith’s head spinning every bit as much as Manuel’s is certain to be.
Neither rookie quarterback has been rattled, but Smith hasn’t met Mario Williams yet, and Manuel hasn’t met Mo Wilkerson.
Smith’s task and development is a pedestrian backfield and a receiving corps that is more Moan Time than Tone Time.
Complicating Manuel’s task is a hostile MetLife Stadium as his first road-eo.
Manuel, however, has a pair of weapons in RB C.J. Spiller and WR Stevie Johnson who can bail him out at any time, and he has a better understanding so far that ball security is the end-all and be-all for a rookie NFL quarterback cutting his teeth.
Smith needs to bounce back from his three-interception fourth quarter against the Patriots, an example of the kind of growing pains many NFL experts expected from him out of West Virginia.
“I didn’t think either one was ready to play right away,” the NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah said.
Jeremiah, a former NFL scout for the Eagles, Browns and Ravens, rated Smith his top quarterback in the draft, and Manuel second.
“I thought EJ was very raw,” Jeremiah said.
Jeremiah said Smith would have benefited from watching from the sidelines at the start of the season.
“You’re always in the shotgun in that West Virginia offense.” Jeremiah said, “and you never saw him get too deep in his progressions in college. His deep-ball accuracy was still a little bit of a work in progress.”
Asked what he has seen of Smith against the blitz, Jeremiah said: “I don’t think he’s seeing everything clearly.”
Jets general manager John Idzik passed on both quarterbacks in the first round, and Smith inherited an offense stripped of Dustin Keller and Shonn Green and impaired by Santonio Holmes’ delicate return from his Lisfranc fracture.
“The tough part about it is, I don’t know that the pieces are in place right now for him to really, really play well,” Jeremiah said.
For now, it will be enough for Jets fans if Smith plays better than Manuel, and finds a way to win a game that can give them a measure of hope that maybe they have the better young quarterback, and maybe they will have a better team than anyone thinks. Even if they have to endure a Diaper Bowl first.