How Jets almost dumped Geno Smith for Kirk Cousins

[First Fag President]

Geno Smith didn’t know it at the time, but his future with the
Jets hung in the balance on that Tuesday afternoon seven months
ago.

It was just before 4 o’clock on Jan. 13, a watershed moment for
a franchise looking for new leadership.

An exhaustive two-week head coaching search had reached a
sensitive stage. The organization’s next decision would be its
most critical in years. The wrong choice might prove costly.

Todd Bowles was wrapping up his second interview at the Jets
facility. The Cardinals defensive coordinator was solid and
steady, but Woody Johnson was still intrigued by Seahawks
defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, who had emerged as the most
coveted candidate in the league.

Johnson & Co. left their first interview with Quinn in Seattle
12 days earlier enamored with the synergy of the defending Super
Bowl champs’ entire operation. The Jets wanted to replicate the
dynamic between the coaching staff and front office. The vibe
was just right.

Quinn was extremely impressive in the meeting.

The NFL’s restrictive/ridiculous interview rules had prevented
Johnson and consultants Charley Casserly and Ron Wolf from
talking to Quinn again until the Seahawks were eliminated from
the playoffs or the bye week before the Super Bowl, whichever
came first.

Johnson was prepared to take his private jet back to the Pacific
Northwest on Saturday night, Jan. 10, if the Seahawks had lost
to the Panthers in the divisional playoffs to close the deal and
hire Quinn.

The Seahawks won, setting in motion a chain of events that
brought the Jets to this moment on Jan. 13.

The Jets had heard rumblings that they were Quinn’s top choice.
After all, he was a Jersey guy. Coming home made perfect sense,
but Jets brass needed iron-clad assurance that Quinn wasn’t
wavering in his belief in the Jets. Anything short of that was
playing with fire.

They wanted to be absolutely sure that Quinn wanted them as much
as they wanted him, but time was running short. Bowles was going
to board a plane the next morning for a second interview in
Atlanta.

Could the Jets take the chance of letting such an impressive
candidate walk out the door?

What if Quinn, who had interviewed with five teams and been
mentioned for a late opening in Denver, didn’t have the Jets
atop of his wish list?

The smokescreens and shell games during coaching-search
processes had turned plenty of teams into fools in the past.

What if the Jets didn’t land Quinn or Bowles?

The organization needed to make a swift and smart move. Just
before 4 p.m., decision makers started to reach out to people
who might be able to provide clarity. The next two hours were
critical.

They needed to know: Was Quinn in or out?

The Jets weren’t given any guarantees. Yes, Quinn liked the
Jets, but the Falcons and others were intriguing, too. That
wasn’t good enough for the Jets, who agreed to a deal with
Bowles just after 7 o’clock. The Jets might have been smitten
with Quinn, but Bowles was hardly a consolation prize.

Atlanta’s patience, meanwhile, paid off. Quinn, whose Falcons
will face the Jets on Friday , was hired the day after the Super
Bowl.

The Jets’ decision to hire Bowles had a ripple effect that gave
Smith new life.

Quinn’s plan had he been hired by the Jets included adding
offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, who resigned as the Browns’
play caller one week after Quinn met with Johnson. Shanahan’s
vision didn’t include Smith, according to people familiar with
the coordinator’s thinking.

Sources told the Daily News that the former Washington play-
caller wanted to trade for former pupil Kirk Cousins, who showed
promise in two years under Shanahan. Cousins, stuck behind
Robert Griffin III on the depth chart, was Shanahan’s primary
target to run his offense in New York.

The Jets’ concurrent head coaching and general manager searches
made for an interesting dynamic. Quinn told friends that he
wanted to bring former Buccaneers GM Mark Dominik aboard in some
capacity.

Although Casserly contacted Dominik, the Jets never formally
interviewed him for a front-office role. Shanahan believed that
Dominik, who worked for five years in Tampa with Washington
president Bruce Allen, could facilitate a deal for Cousins,
according to sources.

Shanahan had an affinity for the Washington signal-caller
despite his 2-7 record as a starter (with four 100-plus passer
rating games) in his three seasons.

Instead, Bowles’ arrival gave Smith a chance at redemption
before his jaw was broken in a locker-room altercation last
week. Smith would have been marginalized from the get-go under
Quinn if/when the Jets traded for Cousins.

“He’d be a middle-of-the-road starter right now,” one NFC scout
said of Cousins. “He has all the intangibles to ascend, but
needs to make better decisions with the ball.”

Cousins might have been the answer for a franchise that has been
desperately searching for a quarterback for five decades. Or he
might have made no difference at all.

We’ll never know.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/jets/mehta-jets-
dumped-geno-smith-kirk-cousins-article-1.2332700