Knowing when to react and when not to is crucial in fantasy football. It’s important to distinguish what is truly significant and what is not. This article aims to clarify what requires our full attention and what can be disregarded.
FIVE THINGS THAT MATTER
JIG IS UP ON GENO?
A year ago, Geno Smith was a revelation — a fable of redemption told through a maligned former second-round pick who was meant to be the QB of the future for a Jets team that was smack dab in the middle of the desert. Predictably, his performance suffered on the field on a directionless, poorly managed team. The blue-collar mix that chooses Jets, Mets, Nets, and Islanders can be brutal, and that ran right off onto Smith’s young shoulders, amplified as the People’s Champion, Ryan Fitzpatrick, soaked up some of the most significant numbers of his career in his stead.
Smith has shown signs of being sensitive and emotional sometimes, so this couldn’t have been a worse circumstance for a career start. He became a journeyman backup, and among his more notable stops was a 2017 stint with the Giants in the same MetLife Stadium, where he became a villain again through no fault of his own by being Bob McAdoo’s choice to replace a benched Eli Manning, ending Manning’s consecutive games streak.
When he was tasked to take over for Russell Wilson in Seattle in 2022, it was accepted that, despite indications that Smith was better than perceived, he would be a bridge to some other Seattle signal caller who would carry the team into the future. But to everyone’s surprise, Smith was so good that he won AP Comeback Player of the Year and forced people to consider the validity of Wilson’s near-Hall-of-Fame track under HC Pete Carroll.
Less than an entire season later, we are left wondering if Smith might not return in 2024, as his contract is structured so that Seattle can get out if they choose. Smith has not been as efficient this season as he was last. In 2022, he ranked sixth in FPOE and tenth in EP. While they are the criteria the old-school football press cherishes, the TD/INT rate is relatively volatile; with 30 TDs and 11 INTs last season, there was at least a chance that Smith was on the better side of luck.
This year, Smith has 12 passing TDs, which has negatively affected his receiving options, and eight INTs, a much less Herculean rate. His EP is nearly the same as it was a year ago, falling just four spots to 14th, but his FPOE has tumbled to 58th in the NFL among QBs. To make matters worse, he’s not rushing the ball as frequently or effectively, perhaps because of some pangs along the way, which hurts his fantasy outputs.
If we scrutinize even more, using the RotoViz Stat Explorer, we can see that Smith was far more efficient in FPOE/G in Weeks 4-5 of 2022, and as the season went along, his efficiency dovetailed severely. Smith has not had an FPOE over 10 since Week 5 of last year, and since Week 14 of 2022, he has only three instances of positive FPOE total.
Smith may return in 2025; in the modern QB landscape, he is still likely better than whatever the Seahawks can find lying around. But we may need to adjust our thinking to find the middle ground between the spare part he was perceived to be entering 2022 and the top-10 starter some viewed him as entering 2023.
