Geno Smith is blaming his now former agents for his falling all the way into the second round of this year’s NFL draft. But it appears he might actually be the one at fault.
Smith, who finally came off the board at No. 39 to the New York Jets, fired his agents after the draft-day slide. But some league executive seemed unimpressed with Smith, according to Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports.
The sources described Smith as having a bad attitude and even accused him of spending too much time on his phone instead of paying attention to coaches.
“His biggest problem is that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know,” said one league executive. “I’m not sure he knows how to take instruction because he pretty much wouldn’t listen or talk to our coaches.”
The same accusation came from another league executive, who claimed that Smith was something of a loner during his visit to their facility.
“All these other players who were in there were talking to the coaches, trying to get to know people and he was over there by himself,” one of the sources said. “That’s not what you want out of your quarterback.”
The overwhelming perception wasn’t that people around the league didn’t like Smith, rather, that they worried about his personality and how players would react to him in the locker room.
“He doesn’t have much presence, not much of a leader,” said another league executive. “I don’t think he’s a bad person, but that’s not enough to be a quarterback in this league.”
The Jets better hope that all the criticisms of Smith are mere accusations rather than truth. They’ve had enough behavioral issues in their locker room over the past few years, and by the sounds of it, Geno won’t be mending any of those fences.
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