It's unclear how the New York Jets -- or the St. Louis Rams -- improved themselves by swapping Wayne Hunter for Jason Smith. It's the equivalent of two friends swapping a pair of jalopies.
For better or worse, Mike Tannenbaum agreed to pull the trigger. The Jets' general manager met with beat writers Tuesday to sort through the details of Smith's arrival in New York and said the disappointing former first-round draft pick might see a few snaps against the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday.
Smith reportedly goes into that game with a reworked deal that will pay him $2.45 million this season, according to Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. (In a bit of ugly poetry, that's exactly what the Jets were paying Hunter.)
Mehta confirmed Smith's numbers for 2013 remain unaltered. He's set to rake in a whopping $12 million with a voidable provision, and we don't expect the Jets to warm up to that shopping spree.
This wasn't an act of desperation on the part of the Jets, according to Tannenbaum, who said the Rams were the first to pick up the phone last Friday. The deal heated up over the weekend, despite what we saw from Hunter on Sunday night against the Panthers. Now Hunter is St. Louis' problem, while the Smith headache is New York's. Fun times.
Follow Marc Sessler on Twitter @MarcSesslerNFL.
