Drafted in Round 4 and Ready to Make a Run for the Jets

Jack Bell

Forty-eight hours had passed since the start of the NFL Draft at the end of last month, and Georgia WR Arian Smith was waiting ... impatiently.

"I was just sitting on the couch with my family," he said. "I had a feeling like, I don't know, I had this weird feeling. I just needed to sit down, just feeling a lot of emotions, just been a long 48 hours. So I just sat on the couch and I felt my phone vibrate and I was like, 'Somebody better not be calling me that's my family or something.' "

Nope. The call originated from the Jets' draft headquarters in Northern New Jersey. "They asked me 'Am I ready to be a Jet and get to work?' "

It's often been said that "you can't teach speed," and when it comes to the fleet-footed Smith (6-0, 179) he probably doesn't have much to learn. Before being selected by the Jets on Day 3 (Rd. 4, No. 110 overall), Smith showed his Flash-like ability in high school when he ran a nationally recognized 10.39 in the 100-meter dash as a junior in high school in Florida. He also was part of the gold-medal winning 4x100-meter relay team at the 2019 Pan American U20 Championships. In college at Georgia, he was back running the 100 in a personal best time of 10.10 at the SEC Men's Track and Field Championships.

"Elite speed, he has an explosive element," GM Darren Mougey said after drafting Smith, one of four SEC players taken by the Jets. "When you have a piece like that on offense, it allows you to do more. Whether you're taking the top off or you're taking shots or you're getting him on speed sweeps, quick smokes, just elite speed. He brings an element of speed to our offense, an offensive weapon. When you have a piece like that on offense, it allows you to do more.''

His swiftness made him one of the most dangerous deep threats in the college game for five seasons with the Bulldogs. He broke out as a redshirt senior when he had 48 receptions for 817 yards and 4 TDs.

"They brought me out there and flew me out and showed me hospitality and stuff like that, and showed me a good time," Smith, 23, said of his pre-draft visit to 1 Jets Drive. "And they told me they see something special in me and if they were to draft me that they know who they were going to get and when I get up there it's time to not be a player that's going to have impact or anything, they just know I'm a great person. I'm going to bring up other people around me. I'm going to bring up a good work ethic and at Georgia, they prepare us for these types of moments, so I feel like I was ready."

He added: "My mental and physical toughness, they got me as like a slim body type of player, not that big, just fast, so I feel like I bring a lot of things to the table. Whether it's my speed, whether it's my toughness, or whether it's my versatility. I feel like I'm a good blocker. I'm a great deep threat down the field. I just feel like a handful of things, not just speed, you can see better than I can tell you. It's hard for me to explain what kind of player I am, it's better to see it."

For all his speed and potential, the outside chatter after the draft centered on Smith's tendency to lose concentration for a split second, which result in a dropped pass. According to Pro Football Focus, Georgia was the only team in the SEC last season with three WRs who dropped three or more passes. PFF had Smith with 10 of them.

"That's definitely something I need to improve on," he acknowledged. "I feel like any receiver, any pass catcher that's playing on the next level needs to work on them catching the ball, so drops are going to happen. I just need to do a better job of eliminating them and I need to be more dominant in one-on-ones and I feel like I am.

If he can overcome the mental roadblocks and tune out the noise, Smith has the potential to evolve into an electric pass-catcher in a diverse offense led by QB Justin Fields, elite WR in Garrett Wilson and a stacked backfield of Breece Hall, Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis.