Frank Reich has been around this NFL rodeo for a while now. His first 13 seasons came as a mostly backup, always-comeback-ready quarterback. Most of the last 20 years have come as an NFL coach, 4 of those as an offensive coordinator, 6 more as a head coach.
So Reich knows it when he sees it. And the Jets' first-year offensive coordinator sees much to like so far as the Green & White have entered the final week of their offseason schedule.
"It's been a really good offseason program," Reich said before Wednesday's practice. "I'm really encouraged with the progress that we've seen, of gaining an understanding of what we're trying to do, for us to know the why behind what we're doing — you hear AG [HC Aaron Glenn] talk about that all the time and we've doubled down on that bigtime. It's a very high-football-IQ group."
Now as we know, in theory no one player on offense can be more important than any others. Yet as we also know, in practice the QB is the first among equals. And Reich offered up a spring-and-summer rave review of Geno Smith, the one-time Jets draft choice who has returned to lead Reich's and Glenn's offense in his 14th year as a player.
"It's hard for me right now to not be overly, what's the word, effusive with praise, but I am just so impressed with Geno," Reich said. "I know we haven't played any games yet, we've got a long way to go, we've got a lot to prove.
"But man, he is on point. His preparation is top-notch, his football mind is elite, the way he's communicating in the huddle and at the line of scrimmage and the way he communicates in the quarterbacks room."
Could Reich be influenced by the fact that the uniform number Smith has embraced his entire career is the same number 7 that Reich wore for his one season as a Jet in 1996? Maybe not so much, but Reich does think that Smith's return to the same place he called his home office from 2013-15 for a second bite of the Big Apple has some significance.
"Especially in the beginning, when it first all happened ... he felt it, I felt it for him, the uniqueness of it," Reich said of the trade with the Raiders for Smith in March. He added of former Jets HC Rex Ryan's Tuesday camp visit "After about a week, that kind of went away. It came back a little bit when Rex was back here yesterday, know what I mean?"
Smith, as experienced as he may be in the ways of the NFL, may not remember a lot about Reich the player, who orchestrated those classic comebacks — his second-half magic to bring Maryland from 31 down to the 42-40 upset at Miami in 1984 and his fill-in leadership in the Bills' 38-point comeback for their 41-38 over the Oilers in the 1992 AFC Wild Card Round. But as Reich the OC, Geno likes what he's been seeing so far in shirts and shorts but no pads or helmets.
"Coach Reich has done a phenomenal job of teaching," Smith said in late May. "He's very detailed in the way that he teaches the offense, very meticulous in what he wants from us and how he wants us to execute. It's been great. We're building one day at a time; we're competing, we're getting better every single day, and Coach Reich is leading that ship. With him at the helm, man, I feel really great about it."
Reich knows all aobut how the sweet dreams and flying machines of April through June sometimes lie in pieces on the ground in December and January. But his assessment of the state of his offense in general and the state of his QB1 in particular are encouraging.
"I've been around a lot of really smart and good quarterbacks. All I'm going to say is we're in good shape," Reich said. "We've got a lot to prove, he's got a lot to prove, I do, we all do. We understand that, we understand what world we live in. But it's been good so far."
