Smith joins a Jets team that finished 3-14 in 2025, its 10th straight losing season and 13th of its last 15. New York hasn’t experienced a season since back-to-back AFC Championship games in 2009 and 2010.
That futility predates Smith’s first tenure with the team, when he started 30 games over four years for the Jets as a 2013 second-round pick. He couldn’t lift them then, but eventually revived his career after traveling from the New York Giants to the Los Angeles Chargers to the Seattle Seahawks, where he won the 2022 Comeback Player of the Year during a workout that included making two straight Pro Bowls. After a 2025 campaign with the Las Vegas Raiders, who traded him to New York in March, he’s finally back as the Gang Green starter.
“Coming to the gym and just walking down the hall again – that was the first hall I walked down when I was recruited – all those feelings come back,” Smith said. “Just great feelings, great memories, seeing my mom in the locker room, and I just started thinking about my first time in the NFL, my first time here. Right away, it clicked right back in: I’ve got to go work. I just went right back to it.”
While the expectations aren’t sky-high in New York, Smith should have more to work with than he did in his fight in Sin City. Raiders shortstop Brock Bowers was plagued by a knee injury for most of last season, and Las Vegas traded away Jakobi Meyers, reducing the number of reliable targets on an already thin roster.
With the Jets, he’ll have Garrett Wilson to throw to, as well as a supporting cast of Tim Patrick, Adonai Mitchell and Mason Taylor to join first-round picks Kenyon Sadiq and Omar Cooper Jr. Breece Hall is also back to make life easier after renewing his commitment to the Jets with a three-year extension.
There’s a lot to do to make all the pieces work and extend the feel-good factor beyond Smith simply returning to the team that drafted him, but he has the right mindset to make it happen.
“We want to be the best team in the world,” Smith said. “I’m not shy about saying it, but I understand there’s a lot of work to be done.”