There was excitement last offseason when the Las Vegas Raiders traded for quarterback Geno Smith. However, that excitement quickly turned sour.
Smith led the NFL in interceptions last season and helped the Raiders get the No. 1 pick in the draft. The marriage between Smith and the Raiders quickly became tense.
Fans turned on him, which led to the quarterback flipping his middle finger at the crowd after a game. The relationship became toxic, so the Raiders had to move on from him. They were originally going to cut him, but ended up trading him to the New York Jets.
Smith did not seem to enjoy his time in Las Vegas, and there’s likely plenty of bad blood there. Despite that, the quarterback is avoiding talking too much about his former team ahead of the two teams playing in Week 8.
“It’s another game again,” Smith told reporters. “I mean, it’s another opportunity for us as a team to go out there and try and start a streak, try and establish ourselves. We want to preach improvement every single week. So, going up against obviously a team that I’ve played on, I don’t really put too much stock into it. I just think it’s another game, and that’s the way you need to approach it. That’s the way I approach every game. It’s the most important game because it’s the next one.”
Smith Praises Maxx Crosby
Though the Smith experiment didn’t go well for the Raiders, he still had good relationships with his teammates. Defensive end Maxx Crosby and the quarterback were very close.
Smith had high praise for Crosby ahead of the matchup.
“Yeah, he’s a guy who’s a game wrecker,” Smith said. “He’s a guy who’s always going to be around the football. He plays about almost 100% of the snaps, and he gives maximum effort every single time. Gained a ton of respect for him from being a teammate and just seeing the way that he works. We used to compete on who could get to the weight room first and who stayed the longest. So, ton of respect for Maxx. Really good friend of mine and looking forward to it.”
Raiders & Jets Need a Win
The Raiders and Jets are two teams heading in the wrong direction. The former is on a four-game losing streak, while the latter has dropped back-to-back games. The Jets and Raiders were expected to be bad this season, but both have been competitive for the most part.
Jets head coach Aaron Glenn is at risk of losing his job, so he’s going to be desperate for a win, but for the Raiders, a win gets them back to .500. The Raiders really struggle traveling to the East Coast for early morning games, so that’ll be a big advantage for the Jets.
If Las Vegas can’t win this game, they’ll have to consider being big sellers at the trade deadline. If they can’t beat the Jets, they aren’t going to be in the playoff mix this season.
Geno Smith Sends Clear Message on Raiders & Maxx Crosby