Jets Won’t Commit To Geno Smith Starting In 2014, Mark Sanchez Likely To Be Released

On Tuesday, GM John Idzik and HC Rex Ryan held their season-ending press conference to discuss some topics relating to the team’s upcoming offseason.

Interestingly enough, neither one of them would commit to Geno Smith being their starting quarterback in 2014.

“We’re all excited about having Geno as part of the Jets but we will always look to improve every position in any manner we can and that doesn’t change going into 2014,” said Idzik, via Seth Walder of the New York Daily News. “We’ll look at quarterbacks, yes we’ll look at quarterbacks.”

Idzik was specifically asked whether or not Smith would be their starter next season.

“We don’t look too far into the future with that,” Idzik said. “Again, Geno started 16 games for us. You all witnessed how he did, how he finished strong. We’re very, very excited and happy that Geno is with us.”

That is pretty good indication that they expect to have some extra competition at the quarterback position next year. However, it will be interesting to see if they elect to bring in another veteran quarterback to work with Smith or if they look to the draft and take a quarterback for the second time in as many years.

Smith, 23, completed 247 of his 443 passes (55.8%) for 3,046 yards to go along with 12 touchdowns, 21 interceptions and four lost fumbles.

Walder adds that Mark Sanchez‘s expensive contract will almost certainly lead to him being released at some point in the coming months. He has a base salary of $9 million coming his way in 2014 as well as a $2 million roster bonus in March, so it makes sense that a decision would be made before the bonus is due.

“We’ll get to that in time. He is a Jet. We consider all our guys Jets until we make a decision or something happens that changes that,” Idzik said. “So with Mark — I met with him yesterday as well — our focus is to get him healthy, just as it has been really the entire season and then we’ll take it from there.”