Gailey will do wonders for Geno, and the Jets will be better off with the Geno scenario, over the Fitz one.
Below from last year, but the point remains, Geno can thrive...
www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2015/05/kordell_stewart_chan_gailey_right_coach_for_jets_g.html--------
Kordell Stewart was one of the reasons head coach Todd Bowles brought Chan Gailey out of retirement to be the Jets' offensive coordinator this year.
Eighteen years ago, Gailey coordinated the offense for the Steelers, and Stewart was his quarterback. But instead of molding Stewart into something he wasn't—a traditional drop-back passer, in an era when everyone had to be a traditional drop-back passer—Gailey tailored the Steelers' offense to suit Stewart. It worked: The Steelers reached the AFC Championship Game that season, and their offense ranked sixth in DVOA, per Football Outsiders. They also did this even though Stewart had ranked in the middle of the pack as an efficient quarterback.
All these years later, Gailey's current challenge with the Jets and Geno Smith is similar. And even if Smith is not the same sort of quarterback Stewart was, Stewart is convinced Gailey can cook up a way to make Smith more effective.
"I guarantee you—I think Chan Gailey is going to put him in a position to make him understand himself," Stewart said in a phone interview. "He has one of the strongest arms in the league, and he has good feet. So there's no reason why he can't have success in the National Football League."
In '97, Stewart was a first-year starter who had spent two seasons with the Steelers in the hybrid quarterback/wide receiver role that earned him his nickname, "Slash." He was a gimmick used to throw teams off-balance. But once Stewart finally got his turn at quarterback full-time, Gailey built the offense around him, rather than the other way around.
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Stewart did throw 17 interceptions that year, and he only completed 53.6 percent of his passes. But he ranked 15th in DYAR, and he rushed for 476 yards. Tellingly, after Gailey left to become the head coach of the Cowboys in '98, Stewart mostly struggled. He did bounce back to have a Pro Bowl season in 2001, when he led the Steelers back to the AFC title game. But it was with Gailey that Stewart seemed to be at his most comfortable.
"I was running a system that revolved around my ability to make plays with my feet," Stewart said. "It was a traditional-style offense, with a mindset of understanding that we have somebody in the backfield that can run the football, too."
Smith isn't a run-first quarterback, but he did run a spread in college at West Virginia. Gailey's plan is to implement a spread-style system with the Jets—similar to what he ran when he was the head coach of the Bills from 2010-12, and Ryan Fitzpatrick was his quarterback. Fitzpatrick, incidentally, is now with the Jets competing with Smith to be the starter.
"It's just being able to get a system that fits his skills," Stewart said of Smith. ""You don't have to change him. He's not going to sit in the pocket all day like Tom Brady. He's not going to sit in the pocket all day like Peyton Manning. He needs to get the ball out of his hand quick. And how do you do that? You call a quick, three-step game. You call a quick, five-step game. Everybody is so enamored in the National Football League with guys having quick feet, to where now he's a mobile quarterback. He's not."
The '97 Steelers led the NFL in rushing (154.9 yards per game). They also had capable receivers, starting with Yancey Thigpen (17.7 yards per catch), and a future Hall of Fame running back in Jerome Bettis (1,665 rushing yards). They ranked seventh in scoring (23.3 points per game). They had an outstanding defense.
"I guarantee you—I think Chan Gailey is going to put him in a position to make him understand himself."
In 2013, when Smith was a rookie, his second-most-frequent target was David Nelson, who got cut last year. This offseason, the Jets traded for Brandon Marshall to go along with Eric Decker and Jeremy Kerley, and they drafted a deep threat in Devin Smith.
Last year's Jets were third in the NFL in rushing (142.5 yards per carry), and their defense has the potential this season to be among the league's best. The X-factor, then, is going to be Smith, provided he doesn't get beaten out by Fitzpatrick in camp.
Transforming Smith into a success is going to be a tall order, obviously. He threw 34 interceptions in his two seasons, and not all of his struggles could be attributed to what the Jets lacked around him. Plenty of Smith's mistakes were of his own making. It's now Gailey's job to try to fix what's broken, and to get all he can out of Smith.
Gailey last week alluded to something that Stewart said helped make the '97 Steelers effective, and it dovetailed with a point Stewart mentioned repeatedly in our interview.
"You just adjust to what you have," Gailey said. "You set it up to where you become an execution-oriented offense and don't rely on the big play."
Stewart said the '97 Steelers' offense was built around getting first downs. The Steelers ranked tied for third in that category that year. The Jets last year under offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, who had tried to mold Smith into his west-coast offense, ranked 25th in first downs (18.1).
"Be methodical, don't make mistakes, and just keep the chains moving," Stewart said. "Then what happens to your defense? They're rested. Worst-case scenario, you get three points. But I think the defense is good enough to cause the opposing team to come out of the game quick.
"Chan will emphasize, 'Just get first downs.' He don't care about nothing else. 'Get first downs, everything else will take care of itself.' That's how easy he made it for me. He makes the game easy. That's Chan Gailey's philosophy. It's simple. It worked."