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HOUSTON, TEXAS – DECEMBER 21: Geno Smith #7 celebrates with Ashton Jeanty #2 of the Las Vegas Raiders after he scored a third quarter touchdown against the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium on December 21, 2025 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Tim Warner\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Aaron Glenn did not leave much room for interpretation when asked about Geno Smith<\/a>\u2019s place on the New York Jets<\/a> depth chart.<\/p>\n The former Seahawks<\/a> quarterback has New York\u2019s full backing heading into the 2026 season, with Glenn telling NFL Network\u2019s Judy Battista<\/a> on Sunday there is \u201cno doubt about it\u201d when it comes to Smith being the Jets\u2019 starter. Glenn added, \u201cHe\u2019s our guy.\u201d That is the strongest public endorsement Smith has received since the Jets brought him back earlier this month.<\/p>\n For Seahawks fans, it is a notable development because it reinforces how far Smith\u2019s career arc has traveled since reviving himself in Seattle. The same quarterback who reset his reputation with the Seahawks, and then fell to new lows in Las Vegas, is now being handed clear control of another team\u2019s offense, and Glenn\u2019s comments suggest the Jets do not plan to spend the spring entertaining a public quarterback competition.<\/p>\n Aaron Glenn on Geno Smith to the NFL Network this morning. <\/p>\n Aaron Glenn just removed one obvious Jets offseason storyline<\/p>\n Teams do not always speak this directly about the quarterback spot in late March, especially when the draft is still coming and roster-building is unfinished.<\/p>\n That is why Glenn\u2019s wording matters.<\/p>\n New York could have easily framed Smith as the leader in the clubhouse while preserving flexibility. Instead, Glenn went much further, calling Smith a \u201cbona fide starter\u201d and pointing back to the veteran\u2019s best Seahawks stretch, when he won Comeback Player of the Year and briefly entered the MVP conversation.<\/p>\n That does not guarantee the Jets will ignore the position in the draft. Glenn himself stopped short of ruling that out, saying the team\u2019s focus is on coming away with \u201creally good players\u201d regardless of position. But his comments do tell fans something important: if the Jets add a young quarterback, it would be about the future, not because Smith is arriving to compete for the job.<\/p>\n That distinction is the real news.<\/p>\n Why Geno Smith\u2019s Seahawks run still matters here<\/p>\n Smith\u2019s 2025 season with the Raiders<\/a> was uneven. According to NFL<\/a>.com\u2019s report, he completed 67.4% of his passes for 3,025 yards, 19 touchdowns and 17 interceptions in 15 games while playing behind a struggling offensive line. Those numbers were hardly a perfect sales pitch.<\/p>\n But Glenn\u2019s comments show the Jets are not evaluating Smith strictly through the lens of last season in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n They are also betting on the version Seattle got when Smith stabilized his career and proved he could run an offense at a playoff-caliber level. That history matters because it gives New York a reason to believe his floor is higher than the late-career journeyman label that once followed him. Glenn essentially said as much by referencing Smith\u2019s Seahawks revival instead of dwelling on his Raiders struggles.<\/p>\n For Seattle fans, there is something familiar in that. Smith earned respect in Seattle by turning uncertainty into production. Now he is walking into another situation where a coaching staff is asking him to settle the room and give structure to an offense that badly needed it.<\/p>\n The Jets\u2019 trade already hinted at this outcome<\/p>\n The Jets did not trade for Smith as a placeholder in the vague sense of the word.<\/p>\n When New York officially acquired him from Las Vegas on March 11, the move cost only a 2026 sixth-round pick while also bringing back a 2026 seventh-rounder. That was a modest price for a team seeking stability at the game\u2019s most important position. It also made little sense unless the Jets viewed Smith as a legitimate starter, not just camp depth.<\/p>\n Glenn\u2019s latest comments simply confirmed what the transaction suggested from the start.<\/p>\n The bigger question now is not whether Smith opens the season as QB1. It is how much support the Jets can put around him. Glenn said the organization was intentional about adding more veteran help after fielding one of the league\u2019s youngest rosters last season. If that approach works, Smith may be asked to do less rescuing and more steering.<\/p>\n That is the kind of setup Smith spent years chasing.<\/p>\n And after everything that happened in Seattle, then Las Vegas, then back to the team that originally drafted him, the clearest takeaway from Glenn\u2019s remarks is this: the Jets do not want a quarterback debate right now. They want Geno Smith to lead.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tErik Anderson<\/a> is an award-winning sports journalist covering the NBA, MLB and NFL for Heavy.com. He also focuses on the trading card market. His work has appeared in nationally-recognized outlets including The New York Times, Associated Press , USA Today, and ESPN. More about Erik Anderson<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Seahawks\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty HOUSTON, TEXAS – DECEMBER 21: Geno Smith #7 celebrates with Ashton Jeanty #2 of the Las Vegas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2051],"tags":[7,226,1917,255,2321,2097,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-841563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-jets","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jets","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-jets","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkjets","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116314343286308338","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}