FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Geno Smith remembers the skeleton.
Not the proverbial skeletons of past seasons buried, the New York Jets’ back-again quarterback remarkably void of negativity or defiance about his winding NFL journey, offensive coordinator Frank Reich says.
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Instead, this skeleton far predates the Jets selecting Smith in the second round of the 2013 NFL Draft and far predates Smith losing his starting job in 2015 after a teammate’s punch fractured his jaw.
The skeleton Smith remembers was life-sized, a replica of every bone in the human body. It stood at the front of his seventh-grade observational drawing class. Smith and his visual arts magnet school classmates were instructed to draw it — every rib and vertebrae, every muscle surrounding the bones, the precise curvature of the spine.
“We had to look at the skeleton and then remember it and draw it to scale,” Smith told Yahoo Sports in June. “A lot of the art tests that I took were similar to that where you had to look at something and then memorize it and then paint, draw or whatever, sketch it from memory ….
“Every single bone, we had to draw it to scale. You had to remember. And it’s not like you’re just drawing a stick figure — a real skeleton is a big deal.”
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And Smith’s photographic memory, his two middle school art teachers told Yahoo Sports, ensured he didn’t omit details.
The Jets do not need Smith to draw skeletons as they work to bury their franchise’s many. But sitting in a hallway of the Jets facility during mandatory minicamp in June, this decades-past art project came to mind when Smith was told about Reich’s early impressions of his quarterback.
“I think the guy’s got a photographic memory, I swear,” Reich had told Yahoo Sports earlier that day.
Smith didn’t argue the claim: “I’m pretty sure I do, yeah.”
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He’s known that, he says, since middle school art class.
That photographic memory was one of several factors that helped the Jets to a 23-10 win over the Tennessee Titans, Smith comfortably completing 19 of 24 passes for 215 yards and no turnovers in his first game despite playing in his third offensive system and for a third team in three years.
But Smith has also learned as recently as last year — when his Las Vegas Raiders beat the eventual AFC champion New England Patriots in their season opener, before finishing the year 3-14 — that a successful Week 1 win does not a successful year make.
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As he looks to lead the Jets to their first 2-0 start in 11 years, Smith will use his deeply entrenched memories of past games against Jonathan Gannon’s defenses to take on the Green Bay Packers and their first-year coordinator.
But he’ll also find confidence in the pieces around him, as his skill position and offensive line support far exceeds what Smith played with last year in Las Vegas.
“I’m super competitive and I’m super motivated, but also I understand it’s a team game,” he said. “And I understand it’s a process and it’s not just me alone.”
One key to Jets’ win vs. Titans: nearly doubling their usage of play action
When the Raiders traded Smith to the Jets in March, Smith thought back to his conversations with former Seattle teammate and now Chiefs running back Kenneth Walker.
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Together, he says, they’d admired Jets running back Breece Hall.
“Kenneth really has a lot of respect for Breece and I do as well,” Smith said. “And I was like, ‘Man, he’s nice.'”
The Jets’ running game, compared to what Smith witnessed with the Raiders, is nice, too.
Determining the root of Las Vegas’ dead-last offense in scoring and yardage is a tall task. But wherever the rot started, one place it went was clear: No team rushed for fewer yards than the Raiders’ 1,317. No team allowed more sacks than the Raiders’ 64.
So as Smith got his latest fresh start, in his original NFL home, he looked to the Jets’ 10th-ranked rushing attack in 2025 and smiled.
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“It’s going to be my best friend,” Smith said.
Against Tennessee, it was.
Geno Smith is back with the New York Jets, where he NFL career began. He’s looking to rewrite his story. (AP Photo/John Amis)
(AP Photo/John Amis)
Beating the Titans, who also won just three games last year, is no panacea. But the Titans’ run defense ranked above average last year, and the Jets gashed Tennessee for 152 yards, seventh-most in the NFL’s opening weekend.
That run game, led by Hall’s 102 yards and a touchdown, opened up the play-action threat.
“Massive help to any quarterback,” Reich said of the run game in June. “It just takes the pressure off. It slows the rush down. You’re in favorable down and distance more often. You get better chunk plays because you’ve got play-action pass that is set up for the quarterback, and Geno’s got the arm that can get the ball down the field.
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“So on some of that play-action pass stuff where you’re trying to get the ball down the field, that kind of feeds momentum. So I think it’s going to be a good fit.”
Through one week, Reich’s predictions panned out.
After taking 3.7 sacks and facing 7.9 pressures per game last year, Smith was not sacked and was pressured just once against the Titans, per Pro Football Reference.
A year after New York ranked 29th using play action on 19.3% of snaps last year, according to NFL Next Gen Stats, Reich nearly doubled that to 37.5% against the Titans — third-most among teams in the opening week.
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And those chunk plays? Smith completed a whopping four passes for 20+ yards.
He aired a 40-yard pass to a diving Adonai Mitchell in the red zone in the third quarter and set up rookie Omar Cooper Jr. on a wheel route on third-and-9 for a 30-yard gain. Garrett Wilson caught two explosive passes from Smith: for 31 yards down the right sideline early in the third quarter and then 22 yards hugging the left sideline over the head of a defender the next drive.
“I thought he did an outstanding job,” head coach Aaron Glenn said. “Listen, there’s some things obviously that we’ve got to clean up and get better at. But man, I think he was dang-near 80% throwing the ball. He put the ball where he needed to. Some of those anticipated throws that he made, I mean the one to [Mitchell], the deep corner route, the ball was out of his hand, [Mitchell] was still actually running his route, and that comes down to trust. That’s all that is is trust.
“That’s been a work in progress from OTAs to training camp, still going into the season, and you’re starting to see that actually show up quite a bit.”
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Smith swapping ideas with Reich, teammates to win ‘chess game’
Winning one game far from guarantees Smith’s NFL and Jets future.
While the 35-year-old plans to play for a while, there’s reason to believe the Jets don’t plan to play with him for the long haul.
The Jets own three first-round picks in the quarterback-rich 2027 draft after trading away All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner and All-Pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams last year.
A young core, including Cooper, and first-round rookie tight end Kenyon Sadiq, who scored a touchdown Sunday, appear to position the club to support its next man under center better than its last handful.
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Until then, the Jets expect Smith to upgrade their arm talent, veteran presence and command in the huddle. He craves a chance to rewrite his own career after the Seahawks shipped him to Las Vegas in favor of Sam Darnold and then Smith threw a league-high 17 interceptions with the Raiders. Amid the instability and on-field dysfunction, Smith says he learned last year more about his teammates’ responsibilities.
“I was around a lot of young players last year, a lot of rookies, and so I found myself coaching and probably getting the jump on my next life,” Smith said. “I was coaching a lot last year, and when you have to do that, it just amplifies. You think in a different way. You see the game differently.”
He aims to apply those nuances about his running backs’ steps as well as his receivers’ splits and hip angles to support the Jets this year, Smith far from a passive observer in building this offense.
Dating back to the spring, Smith and Reich have exchanged late-night voicenotes and clips to share how each has beaten certain concepts in the past, and how that informs their beliefs on strategy for the 2026 Jets.
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He’s sent teammates play clips, too, that skeleton-tested photographic memory coming in handy for not only Smith but those around him.
“I’ll send them some videos or try to put some stuff on their iPads and they do the same,” Smith told reporters Wednesday. “I think that open line of communication is great. It just breeds for a better offense and a better connection with the wideouts, running backs and tight ends.”
Smith will again call upon that memory this week as the Green Bay Packers arrive at MetLife Stadium in their second week of a new defense under coordinator Jonathan Gannon.
Smith faced Gannon’s defenses four times when Gannon was Arizona’s head coach and Smith was playing for Seattle. Smith won all four times — including a fourth-quarter comeback in the 2023 regular-season finale.
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Dating back to the spring, Smith and Reich were exchanging messages about his 2023 fourth-quarter situational work, quarterback sending coordinator the answers he found to chess matches from his prior chapters.
“People don’t understand the level of just, you got to almost be thinking ahead in those situations,” Smith said. “And you’re almost thinking about, like, you try to get inside the defensive coordinator’s brain. ‘In this situation, the percentages are that he’s going to make this call or do this thing. Well, here’s our answer for that.’
“I love that about football because it’s a chess game.”
A chess game that Smith can, and will remember as he tries to give Jets fans their first 2-0 start in over a decade.
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“Just looking forward to another opportunity to compete with the guys and go out there and try and win a game,” Smith said. “Each and every week, it’s about having a 1-0 mindset.”
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