As if things couldn’t get any worse for the New York Jets, quarterback Geno Smith will be out 6-10 weeks with a broken jaw that resulted from a locker room dispute with linebacker IK Enemkpali.
Enemkpali purchased a $600 plane ticket for Smith to fly out to Pflugerville, Texas and attend his football camp on July 11. Smith accepted the ticket; however, he did not make it to the camp due to the death of a close friend a few days before. IK wasn’t too happy about that, and Smith agreed to reimburse him the $600. Well, as of Tuesday (August 11), Smith had made no attempt to give Enemkpali his cash.
Enemkpali confronted Smith in the locker room, and the situation escalated to a one-hit KO and a broken jaw for the team’s QB.
Good luck explaining that to head coach Todd Bowles.
“It had nothing to do with football. It was something very childish,” said Bowles. “He got cold-cocked, sucker-punched, whatever you want to call it, in the jaw. He has a broken jaw, fractured jaw. The team knows it’s something we don’t tolerate, something we can’t stand. You don’t walk up to a man and punch him in the face.”
Apparently the NFL is becoming more violent on the field too (yes, that was a shot at Ray Rice, Junior Galette, and Adrian Peterson).
To be fair to Enemkpali, it was also reported by former Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ryan Clark that Geno egged him on by putting fingers in his face and telling him he isn’t going to do anything about it. That’s like telling a madman with a knife, ‘what are you going to do, stab me?’
Talk about a new low for an already-sad franchise.
Things were starting to look up, too. Smith was actually starting to show improvement coming into 2015. That’s right, I said it. Hear me out before you stop reading:
The Jets just brought in Brandon Marshall, drafted Devin Smith, and retained Eric Decker. A little help from Chris Ivory and new offensive coordinator Chan Gailey, and maybe—just maybe—Smith could have surprised a few people this season. The defense will generate some turnovers, and so it was all looking up.
Breaking your jaw in a locker room fight with a teammate is the kind of thing that would ruin your momentum though.
In other news, guess which subpar quarterback just earned yet another starting job? That’s right, Ryan Fitzpatrick is back!
After orchestrating the Houston Texans to his first winning season as a starter in the NFL despite many failed attempts with just about every other team imaginable, Fitzpatrick has been declared “our starter” by Bowles already. Telling you that Fitzpatrick only did slightly better than Geno Smith in 2014 should be all you need to know about him.
Ever since the rapid decline of Mark Sanchez and the addition of the word ‘buttfumble’ into the dictionary, the Jets’ quarterback situation has been laughable. Smith, Tim Tebow, an old Michael Vick, and now Ryan Fitzpatrick have all been a part of the attempt to clean it up, and (spoiler alert) they all failed.
The Jets only have one other quarterback on the roster with Smith out, but rookie Bryce Petty has been struggling greatly at training camp. Their solution? Reach out to former Chicago Bears quarterback Rex Grossman…
C’mon, Jets.
No, I don’t have a better idea, but it’s not my job to fix their problems. My job is to make fun of them when they make their problems worse.
Let’s just pray nothing happens to Eli Manning.