After undergoing jaw surgery last week, Jets quarterback Geno Smith continues to recover, and a spot on the short-term injured reserve list remains a possibility for him. However, as Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News tweets, general manager Mike Maccagnan said today that the Jets are unlikely to use their IR-DTR slot on Smith.
According to Maccagnan, the Jets expect Smith to miss the first four games of the regular season, tweets Rich Cimini of ESPNNewYork.com. The GM added that signing a veteran quarterback is something the team is “looking to do,” per Connor Hughes of the Journal Inquirer (Twitter link). Free agents like Matt Flynn and Rex Grossman have been linked to the Jets so far.
The IR slot with the designation to return can only be used on one player per team per season, so if the Jets expect Smith to only miss a month or so of the season, it makes sense that the club would hesitate to use its IR-DTR spot — the designation ensures that the player can’t practice for six weeks, and can’t play in a game for eight weeks.
Still, the Jets will have to keep Ryan Fitzpatrick and Bryce Petty on their active roster, so if they want to add a veteran backup and continue to carry Smith, that would mean devoting four roster spots to the quarterback position for the first month or so, which seems somewhat impractical. The club doesn’t have to make a decision on Smith until the first week of September, so there will be some time to determine how his health is progressing over the next couple weeks.
It seems more likely at this point that they will just roll with Fitzpatrick and wait on Geno, particularly since Geno seems to be healing nicely. It’s not as if anyone currently available is better than Fitzpatrick, and they seem to be high on Petty, so trading for a young, inexperienced signal-caller like Mettenberger does not seem especially likely right now either.