After the New York Post staked out the broken-jawed quarterback Saturday and found him playing catch outside his apartment complex, Jets coach Todd Bowles was less than enthused. Smith had undergone surgery less than three days earlier to repair his jaw and Bowles, already without his starter for six to 10 weeks, said Smith disobeyed strict instructions to avoid physical activity and was summoned to the team’s facility Sunday for a talkin’ to.
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“He just got surgery. You don’t want it infected,” Bowles said after practice Sunday, via ESPN.com. “He shouldn’t be doing it right now. We handled that internally. We had that discussion.
“(The doctors) said he couldn’t do anything physical.”
Smith suffered his injury last week at the hands of now-former teammate IK Enemkpali in their infamous locker room fight, which reportedly began as a dispute over $600. He had surgery to repair the jaw, broken in two places, on Thursday.
In the Post story, Smith — cheeks swollen — was photographed shirtless wearing eye black while tossing a football to a friend down the driveway of Smith’s Whippany, N.J., apartment. The Jets said it wasn’t eye black Smith was wearing, but instead bandages under his eyes.
All told, Smith has made light of his situation since Tuesday, and seemed to be in good spirits when approached.
“I feel great,” he told the Post reporter. “You see me throwing, right? … Get ready for me to come back.”
When asked about the fight with Enemkpali, Smith said he had no comment.
Then he added, “You’re on private property, and I’ve been nice, but I don’t want to call the cops on you.”
