Geno Smith has fired his agent Select Sports, according to a tweet sent out by Liz Mullen of the Sports Business Journal. This one:
Source: QB Geno Smith has left his agents at Select Sports. Smith, 2nd round pick of NY Jets, cannot hire another agent for 5 days. #NFL
— Liz Mullen (@SBJLizMullen) April 30, 2013
In short, I think I had a large role in Select Sports getting fired.
Geno Smith has amassed career (ugh, hate that term) passing statistics at West Virginia that were better than those of Andrew Luck, RG3, Matt Stafford, Dan Marino, and pretty much every NFL quarterback who was picked number one in their year of eligibility.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that, just someone who’s enthusiastic about his client, or a fan of Geno Smith. So I told Geno of his lofty status, and to my surprise, as he says in my video at the 2:05 mark, he didn’t know that:
That’s sad and speaks to what his agent, Select Sports, did not do, which was create a marketing book on their client, one that made him look like he was the best thing since sliced bread.
I later followed-up my point with a couple of Twitter Tweets to Geno prior to the start of the first day of the 2013 NFL Draft. But the bottom line of all of this, is Geno didn’t know his stats, and his agency, Select Sports, should have drilled all of that not only into his head, but into the collective head of the NFL, and then into the head of ESPN, Fox Sports, and just about everyone else that’s in media.
As an update, the idea that Geno Smith was set to leave the NFL Draft on Friday is just wrong. I was there, and Geno did address that news as inaccurate, saying he just wanted to take his Mom out to dinner:
In short, Select Sports failed to gain control of the message about Geno Smith, and that really hurt him in the NFL Draft. For that, they got released by him, and should have been.
Stay tuned.