Mike Francesa Nailed the Jets’ Geno Smith Draft Disaster

The Tiki Time Machine goes back to the Jets drafting Geno Smith in 2013, and the old WFAN reactions are stunning in hindsight. Evan Roberts, Tiki Barber and Shaun Morash revisit takes from Boomer Esiason, Craig Carton, Joe Benigno, Mike Francesa and a much younger Evan, then decide Francesa came closest to identifying the pick for what it really was: a second-round gamble on a quarterback the Jets did not truly love. The archives also uncover a young Tommy Lugauer receiving an on-air assignment from Boomer and Carton before delivering a polished sports minute on J.R. Smith. The nostalgia leads back to a familiar Jets problem, as Geno Smith’s draft-day slide is compared to Cade Klubnik and the impossible criticism teams face when deciding how long to wait on a quarterback.