Well it’s time to take out the ‘punching bag’, Eric Smith, for some more jabs.\u00a0 Smith did not exactly inspire most Jets fans with his play this past season.\u00a0 Visions of him trying to chase down tight ends every week are still etched in our memories, but before you just toss poor Eric to the curb, there are some things to consider.<\/p>\n
Three safeties are currently\u00a0on the Jets\u2019 roster Eric Smith, Gerald Alexander and Tracy Wilson.\u00a0 Former Jets, now unrestricted free agents, starter Jim Leonhard and\u00a0backup Brodney Pool may be resigned.\u00a0 Leonhard suffered a season ending knee injury and will not be ready for opening day.\u00a0 If\u00a0the team\u00a0does not\u00a0bring\u00a0him back they could sign a free agent safety like Reggie Nelson instead.<\/p>\n
The Jets will\u00a0address their\u00a0position needs in the upcoming 2012\u00a0draft.\u00a0 A player like Mark Barron from Alabama\u00a0or other\u00a0top prospects at\u00a0safety will be picked by the team.<\/p>\n
So there you go, Jim Leonhard or Reggie Nelson, Brodney Pool, Gerald Alexander, Tracy Wilson and the 2012 safety draft pick.\u00a0 You can just dump Eric Smith and his salary, but this creates some problems.\u00a0 Alexander has played in eight games over the last two seasons, with ten total tackles, while Wilson, a rookie last year, was brought up from the practice squad and saw limited action in five games.\u00a0\u00a0 Would you trust these guys to even contribute much less be an emergency starter?\u00a0 If the Jets got Mark Barron in the draft there are no guarantees, like with all rookies, he can just step in right away.<\/p>\n
Eric Smith is not a starting NFL safety over the rigors of a sixteen game schedule.\u00a0 He is good in situational defenses and can play special teams.\u00a0 Lack of depth\u00a0hurt the Jets last year and if a safety or two goes down to injury a former starter, now backup,\u00a0has the experience\u00a0necessary to play the position.\u00a0 Smith has also\u00a0been in playoff games, who can forget the hit he laid on Wes Welker\u00a0causing pieces of Welker’s helmet go flying.<\/p>\n
What about cutting him and saving money under the salary cap?\u00a0 Smith will have to renegotiate his contract and lower his 2012 number. If he agrees to a one year deal worth $765,000 the Jets charge will only be $605,000 cause of certain NFL salary rules.\u00a0 So are you willing to throw away a very capable backup who knows the defense for $215,000 at most in cap savings?<\/p>\n
The Jets want to avoid too much turnover at one position in a given year.\u00a0\u00a0Due to\u00a0his experience keeping Eric Smith\u00a0will bring a level of stability during this period of transition at safety.\u00a0 Once other players develop they can move away from him but if the price is right Smith does have value to the team in 2012.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well it’s time to take out the ‘punching bag’, Eric Smith, for some more jabs.\u00a0 Smith did not exactly inspire most Jets fans with his play this past season.\u00a0 Visions of him trying to chase down tight ends every week are still etched in our memories, but before you just toss poor Eric to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-featured-editorials"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-2Pg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10866"}],"version-history":[{"count":60,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10930,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866\/revisions\/10930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}