CINCINNATI — Rex Ryan didn’t bring the soft-shoe when the time arrived to describe the afternoon his rookie quarterback endured. Not this time.
“Was this a step back for Geno Smith?” the Jets’ coach was asked.
“I mean,” he said, “it wasn’t a good performance, for sure,”
No. No it wasn’t. Smith, whose play has mirrored the Jets’ point-by-point all year, who has done mostly good things in Weeks 1, 3, 5 and 7 and has done mostly awful things in Weeks 2, 4 and 6, made it 4-for-4 in Week 8, in this 49-9 throttling the Jets absorbed at Paul Brown Stadium. He was 20-for-30 for 159 low-impact yards. At one point, the Bengals had 180 yards and the Jets 1.
That’s not all on the quarterback, of course.
But these are: two more pick-six interceptions, the first on the opening play of the third quarter, the second a grisly throw augmented by the fact he lost his feet trying to make a TD-saving tackle. That makes three of them in two weeks. And that simply won’t do.
“On the first one, the guy made a great play,” Smith said of Chris Crocker’s pick. “Not my best play. I’ve got to do a better job keeping the ball out of the defender’s reach so they can’t make those kind of plays.”
And on the second, returned to the house by Adam Jones?
“I made a late throw to the sideline,” he said. “He made a good break on the ball and was able to grab it. I should have made the tackle, but I shouldn’t have forced it in the first place.”
To Smith’s credit, while he was as stand up and accountable as he’s been whenever he’s had a poor performance (often as not in even-numbered weeks), he spoke of keeping his head, and his chin, from drooping too badly.
“It’s not discouraging,” he said. “Mistakes are going to happen, no matter how many years I play in this league. It’s something to learn from.”
It is that.