Geno Smith: An Overrated Liability

Being disappointed is one thing.

Leaving the NFL draft because you weren’t selected in the first round is not only a display of conceded immaturity; it is an egregious act that shows the true colors of a future NFL quarterback.

While it is understandable that Smith would feel slighted due to the fact that several mock drafts had him as a top ten draft pick, it is simply unacceptable to succumb to your emotions, particularly when your position of choice designates you as a confident leader.

Rather than displaying professional dignity, Smith chose to capitulate himself to his own heightened ego which inevitably damaged his reputation as an up and coming professional athlete.  However, Smith’s ill-advised antics didn’t stop there.  His chronic frustrations with being supposedly black balled elevated his corrupted mind set to the point where those who helped him were also caught in the crossfire.

Less than a week after the New York Jett selected Smith in the second round, the young and naïve athlete took the liberty of firing his agents without remorse.  While Smith stated that the firing of his agents wasn’t due to his disappointing drop in the draft, he was extremely vague on the circumstances that led to their termination; “I don’t want to shed too much light on it,” Smith said in an interview on SiriusXM Radio.  “The thing that I can tell you is that it’s not because of the whole draft experience.  As of right now, I don’t feel comfortable talking about all the details of it.”

What seems disingenuous about this statement is that it lacks any type of directness or culpability.  Rather than confidently conveying a pertinent answer to the situation, Smith decided to dodge the question all together.  This not only points to a sign of desperate deception, it also displays that this young athlete is way in over his head in terms of making these types of drastic decisions.

However, even with these emotional disputes, Smith is at least worthy of being a highly touted draft pick right?  While Smith completed an impressive 71.8% of his passes during the 2012 regular season, 34% of his thrown passes were at or behind the line of scrimmage.  Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising that in West Virginia’s six losses, Smith completed less than a quarter of his 15-yard throws and was typically off target on more than half of his passing attempts.  Finally, Smith averaged only 7.7 pass yards per attempt, the fewest of any top quarterback prospect.

What this means is that not only was Geno Smith lucky to be selected even in the second round, but the notion that he deserved to be a top ten overall pick in the draft is simply preposterous.  This is why mock drafts should only be considered as professional speculation rather than justifiable gospel (that’s another story for another time).

Given all this information, is it safe to say that Smith is on the path to being a total bust for a team that is on the precipice of being not only the worst team in the league, but also as a broken franchise that fans and analyst talk about in jest?  Can the incongruous actions on Smith’s part be attributed to a nervous youngster trying to alleviate the tension he feels with the media, or is Smith simply trying to ingratiate himself because he believes he didn’t garner the respect he deserved?

While the answers to these lofty and detrimental inquires still have yet to be fully decided one notion remains absolutely certain; if Geno Smith fails to live up to his glorified expectations that have been bestowed upon him (fairly or unfairly), he will not be one of the biggest let downs of all time, but ultimately the most disgraceful prospect in NFL history.