Geno Smith Had to Leave the Jets to Get Good. Can He Rewrite the Story Now?
A rare reunion gives Smith a chance to reshape one of the most fascinating QB career arcs of the past few decades.
Geno Smith’s first tenure with the New York Jets was a bit of a punchline — literally. More than most of what he did on the field, where New York was 12-18 with him as starting QB, Smith is remembered for linebacker teammate IK Enemkpali punching him in the locker room over a $600 plane-ticket dispute. The incident left Smith with a fractured jaw and sidelined him for most of the 2015 season, paving the way for Ryan Fitzpatrick to take the Jets’ starting role and nearly lead the team to the playoffs with a 10-6 record.
It also paved the way for Smith, the former No. 39 pick in the 2013 draft, to leave New York and embark on a remarkable career journey from backup to late-blooming starter.
At the time, the Smith-Enemkpali run-in invited easy jokes: A younger and stupider version of yours truly wrote a 538 story that originally carried the provocative headline, “Jets Fans Should Be Glad Geno Smith Got Punched in the Face,” basically arguing that Enemkpali did the team a favor because Fitzpatrick was more efficient and Smith had been well below average in his first few seasons as starter. Blunt delivery aside, that wasn’t exactly proven untrue by subsequent events — but it missed Smith’s potential to improve, as well as his perseverance to find the chance to reinvent himself elsewhere.
Geno would back up Fitzpatrick for another season in New York before tearing his ACL, then moved on to hold the clipboard for Eli Manning with the Giants — somewhat regrettably being called upon to start and end Manning’s 222-game starting streak (not Smith’s fault; blame Ben McAdoo) — Philip Rivers with the Chargers, and Russell Wilson for his first few seasons with Seattle.
Smith was a student of the game throughout, and he came away from the experience with a far deeper knowledge of how to play quarterback in the NFL. So when the Seahawks traded Wilson to the Denver Broncos for a ton of draft picks and players (including QB Drew Lock), Smith seized upon his chance and beat Lock out for the starting role.
The rest was history: Smith started every game, threw for 4,282 yards and 30 touchdowns, led the league with a 69.8 percent completion rate, made the Pro Bowl and took Seattle to the playoffs (where he played well despite losing). His 110.1 Expected Points Added above replacement was by far the best mark of his career, showcasing that he could be a viable starter in the league after so many years on the sidelines.
And then he did it again! In 2023, he ran it back with basically an identically-productive season (109.4 EPA above replacement) and helped Seattle post another winning record, even though they missed out on the playoffs. Smith lost some effectiveness the following season, posting 85.3 EPA above replacement — with a below-average per-play rate — but the Seahawks went 10-7, only missing the playoffs on a tiebreaker. By the time he left Seattle via trade to the Raiders during the 2025 offseason, Smith had gone 27-22 as starter over the course of three seasons, with 304.7 EPA above replacement over that span.1
Smith’s one year with Las Vegas was, to put it plainly, a disaster. Despite reuniting with Pete Carroll, Smith threw an NFL-high 17 picks and was negative-20.9 EPA above replacement, easily the worst season of his career. With Fernando Mendoza presumably starting a new era for the franchise under center, Smith hit the road again — returning to the Jets in a trade this week after a decade away.
“It's like this full circle moment for me, honestly,” Smith said on Josina Anderson's podcast. “I can remember my last touchdown was to Quincy Enunwa right there at MetLife Stadium playing the Ravens the day I tore my ACL. That began my journey and it all led me back here where it all started.”
“It’s kind of like a movie, kind of like a movie script.”
At age 36 next season, coming off such a horrible year in Las Vegas, a redemption arc for Smith in New York would certainly be his most improbable chapter yet. But in truth, any amount of success in a second act with his first team would be unique for a QB who compiled most of his value outside of that franchise.
Here’s a plot of every post-merger QB who returned to their original team after playing elsewhere, comparing the EPA value they produced with that franchise to the value they generated with all other teams:
There are a few archetypes to this group. One is like Matt Schaub, whose career started and ended in Atlanta, but whose greatest years by far came in Houston in-between. Then there are QBs like Boomer Esiason, whose career was bookended in Cincinnati, where he did most of his best work — though he had a really excellent 1993 season with the Jets (of all teams), despite them missing the playoffs. (Cam Newton in Carolina also fits this description; he had one mediocre season with the post-Brady Patriots before returning to the Panthers for his career swan-song.)
There’s also Brad Johnson, who began his career in Minnesota (where he was good in 1996-97 before losing his starting job), went to Washington (where he was really good in 1999) and Tampa Bay (where he won a Super Bowl in 2002) before returning to Minnesota (for a solid partial-season in 2005) and ending his career in Dallas. Johnson is the rare case of a QB who was pretty good with his first team, pretty good with other teams, and even halfway-decent in his return to the original team.
(Finally, there are total weirdos like Nick Foles, who were good for exactly 1 season in their first stint with their original team, actively horrible everywhere else, and returned to win Super Bowl MVP with their original team.)2
Right now, Smith is firmly in the Schaub group, with the bulk of his value coming in the “other stints” category (i.e., teams aside from the Jets). If he ends up tacking on any kind of value in this latest Jets stint — and he is the team’s projected starter — Geno could build a sort of “lite” version of the Brad Johnson career path:
Truth is, that would make Smith’s career stand out from any of the other names on the list above, not neatly fitting into any one archetype. But then again, Smith’s entire NFL story has defied neat categorization from the beginning, never following a predictable script — from the jaw-breaking punch to the career backup becoming a first-time Pro Bowler at age 32. So maybe it’s fitting that the next twist in Smith’s strange football journey brings him back to where it started, for one more try.
Filed under: NFL
As far as 3-year runs quarterbacking the Seahawks go, that ranks 18th in franchise history, the best stretch by a Seattle QB aside from Russell Wilson, Matt Hasselbeck, Jim Zorn or Dave Krieg.
I used plurals here, as if there is anybody else in NFL history who fits that particular career arc.
From Aaron Rogers to 2025's Jet QB mess, Geno Smith can't be as bad as what Jet fans like me watched this past season. Right? What we all think is, it is always the SOJ. Why would this be different?