Many factors led to Geno Smith’s disastrous 2025 season with the Las Vegas Raiders. Some were his own fault, but others were outside his control.

One of those external factors was atrocious offensive line play. Aside from Dylan Parham, whom the New York Jets signed this offseason, the Raiders’ OL was among the worst in football.

When reviewing Smith’s 2025 campaign, one thing is obvious: if the Jets have, at the very least, a serviceable offensive line, which appears highly likely, Smith will take a significant stride.

Here is a look at his 2025 statistics broken down by clean pocket vs. under pressure, according to Pro Football Focus.

Clean pocket:

  • 312 dropbacks
  • 83.0 PFF Grade
  • 81.9% adjusted completion rate
  • 7.4 yards per attempt
  • +0.24 EPA per dropback
  • 2.8% Big Time Throw rate
  • 2.5% Turnover Worthy Play rate

Under pressure:

  • 212 dropbacks
  • 29.3 PFF Grade
  • 63.8% adjusted completion rate
  • 5.3 yards per attempt
  • -0.71% EPA per dropback
  • 3.2% Big Time Throw rate
  • 6.5% Turnover Worthy Play rate
  • 25.9% Sack rate

Smith looked like a solid starting quarterback when throwing from a clean pocket. In fact, his 81.9% adjusted completion percentage from a clean pocket ranked seventh-best out of 33 qualified quarterbacks.

It was when Smith faced pressure that everything collapsed, and since he faced pressure so often, it led to a disastrous season overall. A whopping 40% of his dropbacks came under pressure, an astronomically high rate.

This is yet another piece of evidence suggesting Smith’s 2025 season could very well have been an anomaly due to a multitude of variables beyond his control, with poor blocking at the forefront.

With the Jets, protection shouldn’t be as much of an issue.

The Jets’ offensive line is one of the top young, up-and-coming groups in the league. They finished 15th in Pro Football Focus’ pass-blocking grade last season, much better than the Raiders’ 28th-place ranking, and they are on track to keep trending up.

Both of the Jets’ tackles, Armand Membou and Olu Fashanu, are former first-round picks within the past three drafts. Joe Tippmann, 25, closed the 2025 season as one of the league’s top pass-blocking guards and was rewarded with a multi-year extension this offseason.

Dylan Parham will be the only new starter on the line this season. He was Smith’s teammate in Vegas last year, while grading out better than the Jets’ left guard last year, John Simpson, and possessing more long-term upside.

As our Michael Nania pointed out, Smith also averaged -0.009 EPA (Expected Points Added) per attempt on PFF’s zero-graded throws, ranking eighth-best in the NFL. Essentially, that indicates he does the boring, non-exciting stuff well. That’s really all you can ask for from a bridge quarterback on a one-year, $3.3 million deal.

That isn’t to say he was perfect. Not everything was out of his control. He certainly could have been better in certain areas, with his under-pressure play being at the forefront. Nobody is arguing that his poor 2025 campaign was fully out of his hands. However, unstable surroundings certainly had a part in it.

For that reason, Smith’s outlook with the Jets is promising. There is a long list of areas where the Jets project to offer him better support than the Raiders, with the offensive line being at the top.

Aside from Aaron Rodgers in 2024, the Jets have long lacked a quarterback who can execute the simple stuff. Even Rodgers struggled to do that as well as he had in the past.

But the former Seattle Seahawk has a prime opportunity to break that trend, especially due to his alignment with Frank Reich and Garrett Wilson.

The comparison of Smith’s 2025 numbers under pressure vs. in a clean pocket shows that he can certainly still thrive with the Jets in 2026 if he has competent protection.