When he was asked if newly re-acquired quarterback Geno Smith would be the Jets starter in the 2026 season, HC Aaron Glenn was short and to the point.
"No doubt about it," Glenn told NFL.com senior national columnist Judy Battista at the start of the Annual League Meeting in Phoenix, AZ. "He's our guy."
Smith, 35, returns to the team that selected him out of West Virginia in the second round (No. 39 overall) of the 2013 NFL Draft. After four seasons with the Green & White, Smith played in exactly 12 games over the next four seasons (with the Giants, the Chargers and the Seahawks) before he resurrected his career with Seattle in 2022.
When Battista asked Glenn for the significance of having Smith return to 1 Jets Drive as QB1, he said: "It means to have a bona fide starter come in and lead this offense to where it needs to go. Listen, he's done it, you know, a couple of years. I mean, those years in Seattle, when he was, I think, Comeback Player of the Year [in 2022]. Man, he was up for MVP early in the season. There's no doubt in my mind that we brought a competent starter here on this team. I look forward to him getting in the building."
The Jets sent a sixth-round selection in next month's draft to obtain Smith (and a seventh-round pick this year) after his lone season in Las Vegas, where he had been reunited with Pete Carroll, the HC who elevated Smith to QB1 in Seattle after Russell Wilson was traded to Denver.
In that stellar 2022 season, Smith played in all 17 games, had a 69.8% completion percentage (best in the league), 4,282 passing yards, 30 TDs and 11 INTs and was named the NFL Comeback Player of the League and earned a berth in the Pro Bowl.
"Just talking to AG and hearing his plan for the team and how he was going to lead it, and what his plan and my role was with the team, I was pretty sold on it," Smith told team reporter Eric Allen on a recent edition of "The Official Jets Podcast."
