One year after he was stranded in the green room at Radio City for the entire first round, the ominous spectre of Johnny Manziel, aka Johnny Football, was hanging over Geno Smith.
If Smith had proven to be The Chosen One, Jets general manager John Idzik would not have turned to Michael Vick as a fail-safe option.
And now the Jets were picking 18th, and Johnny Football and the circus he brings with him wherever he goes was still available to owner Woody Johnson, a notorious star gazer with PSLs to sell.
Johnny Jet would have meant the end of Geno Smith.
I asked him: “Was your heart racing thinking that maybe Johnny would be the pick?
“No,” said Smith, who was at Citi Field on Friday speaking with children at a Citi Kids event.
“Why not?”
“I wouldn’t care regardless.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wouldn’t. Why do you think not?”
“I just ask the questions …”
“Well I just answered it.”
“No no, you didn’t answer, you said you wouldn’t care, why wouldn’t you care?”
“Because I wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t.”
“If they had picked him, what do you think that would have meant for you?”
“No difference.”
“You wouldn’t have seen that as an indication that they had basically given up on you?”
“We’re talking hypothetical here.”
“No, I know that, yeah.”
“I don’t answer hypothetical questions. That didn’t happen.”
“But you were never worried that it would happen?”
“No.”
“Would you have welcomed the competition if it did happen?”
“I welcome all competition, yes. As you know.”
“Would it have been a circus if he had come in?”
“There’s never a circus with the Jets. There’s never going to be one. We work extremely hard, we believe in what we do there, and we’re led from top to bottom, so all of that is kind of bogus.”
The Tim Tebow Big Top, of course, preceded Smith. Once Idzik signed Vick, who will create enough commotion if not controversy just by showing up, there was no room at the inn for Johnny Football, or Teddy Bridgewater. You can’t change your plan on a whim, unless you have a conviction that the devil you don’t know can be better than the devils you do know. The Browns had little to lose, and happily embraced the polarizing Johnny Cleveland.
“I believe all quarterbacks can be successful, it just comes down to the amount of work you put in and obviously the production that you do on the field, and you just got to go out there and believe in yourself and do what’s right for your team,” Smith said.
Smith then watched Bridgewater slide to the final pick of the first round.
“I was very excited for him, very happy for him,” Smith said. “I’ve been watching Teddy play since he was in Little League … two guys from really like two blocks away to both be drafted close to our city, Miami.”
Smith remembers his emotions when Idzik came calling last year in Round 2 and his childhood dream was realized.
“There’s a weight lifted off your shoulders just knowing that, OK, now I know where I’m going to be at, and I know which team I’m going to be playing for, but I also felt that I needed to just get my playbook and just start studying and try and prepare myself, because obviously I wanted to play,” he said.
He wants to keep playing on Week 1. Asked if he expects to be the starter, Smith said, “I’m going to work, and put myself in a position to do so.”
He welcomes the fight with Vick for the No. 1 job.
“It’s going to be fun,” Smith said. “We’re going to have fun, we’re going to get better, we’re going to really learn from each other, and it’s going to make our entire quarterback group better along with Matt Simms. We’ve already been doing this, but we’re all going to continue to get better and just trust one another that we’ve all got each other’s best interests at hand.”
Smith isn’t looking at this as his job to lose.
“No, it’s not my job to lose, I don’t plan on losing anything,” he said. “If we can compete hard at the quarterback position, everyone gets better, our team will get better.”
But what if he did lose his dream job?
“I would be supportive, and I would still try and be the best teammate and best player that I can be,” Smith said.
Help for Smith, Vick and new receiver Eric Decker arrived Friday night when the Jets selected tall Texas Tech tight end Jace Amaro.
“Whoever we draft, we’re going to bring him into our locker room, we’re going to teach him the Jet way, and we’re going to mold him and allow him to prosper and to grow, so no matter who it is, I know that the guys have been working hard in our scouting staff, and John and Rex and all those guys, to pick the right players,” Smith said. “I’m almost 100 percent sure they’re going to pick the right guy.”
Johnny Football would have been the right guy for a three-ring circus. I’m 100 percent sure of that.