Perhaps the weirdest aspect to the bizarre sucker-punch episode involving Geno Smith has been the eerie silence from his Jets teammates.
The New York quarterback is out six to 10 weeks with a broken jaw after being socked in the locker room by since released linebacker IK Enemkpali. Instead of flooding Smith with public support, though, a handful of Jets players instead reached out to Enemkpali, who was sore at Smith over an unpaid debt.
On Monday, Geno finally found a friend in the form of veteran receiver Brandon Marshall.
"I was sitting right there and I would say this without going into too many details because we've already moved past it: Geno Smith did nothing wrong," Marshall said on FOX TV, per Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. "He did nothing wrong. ... And that's all I'm going to say about that because we have to move forward and I don't want to be a distraction to our team, but Geno Smith did everything the right way."
That flies in the face of what one source told the Daily News, saying that Smith "deserved" to get hit after failing to pay Enemkpali the $600 he owed in airfare charges after failing to show up to the linebacker's football camp.
Marshall wouldn't say much more, but did acknowledge that this latest ride on the GenoCoaster has been an annoyance for a team trying to unseat the Patriots in the AFC East.
"People think it's a distraction," Marshall said. "It is. It sucks. It was shocking. I'm very disappointed. I feel bad for the kid, because he was doing really good. But we have to move forward if we want to win. Geno knows that."
