Jets' Smith Situation May Mirror Carolina's in Quarterback Reboot
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Every position on the Carolina Panthers demanded an upgrade after they went 2-14 in 2010, and as owners of the No. 1 pick in the draft, the Panthers could choose which one to address first. For the team's new coach, Ron Rivera, it was not a difficult choice.
'We felt that we really needed a franchise quarterback,' Rivera said.
Carolina officials reached this conclusion less than a year after using their top draft selection on a player they expected to develop into a franchise quarterback. That player, Jimmy Clausen, fizzled in his 10 starts as a rookie before being supplanted the next season by Cam Newton, who has since blossomed into one of the league's budding stars.
With the benefit of hindsight, Rivera and the Panthers made a shrewd decision. Their willingness to bypass other needs, acknowledge a miscalculation and remedy it accelerated their rebuilding process and invigorated their fan base. They also set a precedent: Carolina is the only N.F.L. franchise in the last 40 years to choose a quarterback in the first round a year after taking one within the first two rounds.
Will the Jets become the second team to do so?
After the season, they must decide how to proceed at quarterback, a position that has bedeviled them for decades, and specifically with Geno Smith, whose situation parallels Clausen's in many ways. Like Clausen, Smith is a second-round pick who was thrust prematurely into a starting role on a team lacking offensive talent. Like Clausen, Smith has the lowest passer rating in the N.F.L and has, at times, performed at a historically poor level. And like Clausen, Smith is trying to assure his employers heading into an off-season when a robust class of quarterbacks is expected to be available in the draft.
Banishing Smith to the third string, as Carolina did with Clausen for two years after Newton's arrival, seems unlikely. But it has become increasingly apparent that Smith's struggles - 24 turnovers and a 55.4 percent completion rate - will compel General Manager John Idzik to acquire competition for Smith through free agency, the draft or a trade.
Idzik, though a team spokesman, declined an interview request. When he last spoke to the news media, on Nov. 4, he said he would not adhere to a 'definitive timeline' in evaluating Smith's long-term viability.
'I think you just have to watch it play out,' Idzik said.
Barring a trade, the Jets (6-7) will not have the No. 1 pick in the draft. This crop of quarterbacks - if underclassmen like Teddy Bridgewater, Johnny Manziel and Blake Bortles declare for the draft - is deep enough that the Jets could choose one in the middle of the first round.
But before determining whether to spend that pick on a quarterback and not, say, a receiver, the Jets will review every aspect of Smith's season. They will consider his performance on game days and on the practice field, in the classroom and in film sessions, and project whether Smith will continue to progress at an acceptable rate. Making the right decision could propel the Jets into annual contention. Making the wrong one could stunt their progress for years.
That seemed the Panthers' fear in 2010. Their shortcomings at quarterback were magnified every time they played a divisional game, against the Saints' Drew Brees or the Falcons' Matt Ryan or the Buccaneers' Josh Freeman, who appeared to be ascending. Rivera indicated that Carolina would have regretted not drafting a quarterback first over all. Marty Hurney, who was fired as the Panthers' general manager last October, did not respond to a message left on his cellphone.
'I wouldn't say we were ready to move on from Jimmy,' Rivera said in an interview last week. 'I would say that we were ready to find out what he was capable of. At the same time, we couldn't risk that he was quote-unquote damaged goods or that he wasn't good enough. That's why we did what we did.'
The challenge for coaches and front-office executives is to properly evaluate a quarterback when he is surrounded by players who are underperforming, inexperienced or both. The 2010 Panthers, who scored the fewest points in franchise history, featured two rookie receivers and were undermined by ugly pass protection. Even so, Rivera said, Clausen did not develop to the team's satisfaction.
'He was a rookie quarterback forced on a bad team,' the veteran offensive tackle Jordan Gross said. 'That's about as tough as it gets.'
The day he was selected, Clausen told reporters that the Panthers 'just made the best pick in the draft.' But it was never their intention for him to play as much as he did that season - 13 games, as many as Smith so far. John Fox, who at the time was in the last year of his coaching contract with the Panthers, had been reluctant to select a quarterback with their first pick - Carolina did not have a first-rounder - because of the expectation to play him. Without an experienced backup, Fox was left with no choice after the incumbent Matt Moore was benched and, later, sustained a season-ending shoulder injury.
'It was never too big or too fast for Jimmy,' Rip Scherer, Clausen's position coach in 2010, said in a telephone interview. 'There were times when you said, 'Shoot, there it is; that's why we took him.' But the key to being successful in the N.F.L. is having those moments back-to-back-to-back in every game.'
Clausen never did. His troubles - poor decision-making, mechanical flaws, lack of poise in the pocket among them - were pronounced, but typical of rookie quarterbacks. He threw only three touchdown passes, and Carolina went 1-9 in games he started.
Soon after replacing Fox, Rivera started evaluating the team's internal options. He called to solicit the opinion of Clausen's coach at Notre Dame, Charlie Weis, who sensed that his former pupil never seemed comfortable. If Clausen regained his confidence, Weis told him, he could rebound.
Clausen did not play again. He was inactive for every game in 2011 and 2012 and, after being waived in August, was placed on injured reserve with a shoulder injury. He was unavailable for comment.
Receiver Brandon LaFell, like some of his teammates, said he was surprised that the Panthers used the No. 1 pick in 2011 on a quarterback.
'Everybody was playing so bad that I thought maybe we were going to get a receiver, or anything else,' said LaFell, who was drafted a round after Clausen in 2010.
'Jimmy didn't play as well as everybody thought he was going to play, but he was so young, and they had just spent a second-round pick on him.'
That is true. The Panthers had just done that. They identified their priority. They strayed from convention. They drafted a quarterback again, and this time, it seems, they got it right.
Post a Comment for "Jets' Smith Situation May Mirror Carolina's in Quarterback Reboot"