NFL award talk for Geno Smith(!) He is changing doubters and Seahawks’ future QB plans
The doubters were like hot takes, TikTok videos and the AT&T girl.
Everywhere.
People from Maine to Maui had more faith in the plummeting stock market for this fall than they had in Geno Smith, Pete Carroll and their remade Seahawks.
“Seven weeks in. Look where we are,” Carroll said.
“Who would’ve thunk it?”
Seattle’s 71-year-old coach smirked and nodded once, a bit smugly.
Where they are is — surprise! — atop the NFC West. The Seahawks, 4-3, are in sole possession of first place entering their test Sunday against the 6-1 New York Giants at Lumen Field (channel 13, 1:25 p.m.)
In his first season as a full-time starter in eight years, since he last started for the New York Jets in 2014, the 31-year-old Smith is playing better than he ever has as a pro. He leads the NFL in completion rate at 73.5%. His passer rating of 107.7 trails only Patrick Mahomes (109.5) and Josh Allen (109.1). Smith’s touchdown passes-to-interceptions of 11 to 3 is the same as $50 million-a-year quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Smith’s base salary on the one-year deal he settled for to come back to Seattle for 2022: $1.26 million. That’s $140,000 over the league minimum for a 10-year veteran.
Smith has heard his many doubters. Immediately after he and the Seahawks beat Russell Wilson’s Denver Broncos in the opener Sept. 12, Smith told game broadcaster ESPN on the field: “They wrote me off. I ain’t write back, though.” He has filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to trademark that line.
Seven games into his career renaissance, Smith is THE surprise story in the NFL. Yet he’s more focused on getting these trashed, reborn Seahawks into the playoffs (?) than he is talking about his proving-those-doubters-wrong tour.
“I’m not even on that tour, to be honest with you,” he said after his latest impressive performance, 20 for 27 with two touchdowns in the Seahawks’ 37-23 domination of the formerly first-place Los Angeles Chargers.
“I’m not worried about doubters,” Smith said. “My life has been great for a long time.
“I’m just out here battling with my brothers and continuing to work.”
Geno Smith changing their plans?
The roots of all this go back to March. Actually, to November, when Smith was starting three games for the injured Wilson and impressing Carroll.
The Broncos blew away Carroll and general manager John Schneider with a trade offer in the first days of March: three veteran players (Drew Lock, Noah Fant and Shelby Harris) plus four top draft choices, including first- and second-rounders next year. That offer, made to Schneider at the NFL combine, was when Carroll got on board with the idea Smith could be Seattle’s quarterback.
The trade of Wilson happened March 8.
Carroll’s and Schneider’s grand plan in doing the massive deal was to have found the Seahawks’ quarterback for the longer term by the end of the 2023 draft. The top picks they got from the Broncos gave Seattle the ability to select one of the many NFL-ready, college quarterbacks Seahawks and league scouts believe can play immediately in the league starting next year. That includes Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud and Alabama quarterback Bryce Young.
Smith and Drew Lock, the Bronco acquisition in the Wilson trade who lost a competition this summer that really wasn’t one to become Wilson’s successor, are both on one-year contracts. So for the Seahawks at quarterback, the future wasn’t supposed to be now. It was supposed to be after the spring of 2023.
Smith has changed that.
His command, accuracy, running, decision-making and leadership make a megabucks, multi-year contract — the deal of his life he couldn’t have fathomed he’d ever get while idle for seven years — now a smart play for the Seahawks.
Last week, salary-cap analysts with overthecap.com compared Smith’s play this season to other quarterbacks and recent deals. They estimated Smith annual value at this performance level as $37.8 million annually.
Yes, he’s playing $36.6 million above his current contract.
Smith should be in no rush to sign a Seahawks extension, not if he keeps playing like this. His value will only rise between now and the end of his contract in January.
Re-signing Smith for tens of millions per year for, say, two or three years would allow a quarterback Seattle drafts with one of their four picks in the first two rounds next spring to spend essentially a “redshirt” year learning. Such a QB would not have to play and take Peyton Manning-like (or, heck, Smith-like, 2013) rookie lumps on the job.
Earlier this month, Carroll was asked on his weekly Monday radio show with KIRO-AM if Smith could now be Seattle’s longer-term quarterback.
“He’s doing everything we could ask of him right now,” Carroll said. “It’s good, too, that he’s got Drew nipping at his heels every day in practice. Every day in practice, Drew does stuff. He’s got good stuff going right there in support of what Geno does. It just keeps everybody on their toes.
“It’s the whole thing about competition. It’s good, and we like it continues to be this way.
“He,” Carroll said of Smith, “realizes the moment. And he’s really going for it.”
Meanwhile, in Denver...
The “who would’ve thunk?” beauty of all this for the Seahawks — for all the Pacific Northwest that felt spurned by Wilson — is, of course, what’s happening in Denver.
Wilson is off to the worst start of his 11-year career. He is 2-4 for the Broncos, who are in last place in the AFC West. His completion rate of 58.6% would be his lowest for a season. He’s on pace for 20 touchdown passes with 12 interceptions this year. That would the fewest TD throws and second-most interceptions of his career.
Wilson missed last week’s Denver home loss to the New York Jets with what’s been reported to be a partially torn hamstring. Many people have noticed he’s stopped saying, “Let’s ride,” to end his press conferences, like he always punctuated his in Seattle with “Go Hawks.”
This is not what the Broncos signed up for. Not when they traded for him, and certainly not when they gave Wilson a five-year, $245 million contract extension at the start of September. That deal has at least $165 million guaranteed to him through 2028.
This is far more than what the Seahawks signed up for, though.
They are in first place, not last. Smith is playing like he never has in the NFL. It’s like he’s slingin’ it around back at West Virginia in the Big 12 Conference during the early 2010s.
His completion rate this season is more than 12 percentage points above his pro career average. He’s never had more than eight touchdown passes and fewer than seven interceptions at this point in any NFL season. Newer metrics such as DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average, for per-play efficiency) have Smith among the top four in the league.
Smith began the season off the board on odds to win the NFL most valuable player award. Now he has the 10th-highest odds to win it, according to internet handicappers BetOnline.
Wilson began the season with the ninth-best odds to win MVP. It’s now Wilson who is off the board on those odds.
Smith started the season off the board on BetOnline’s handicapping of NFL comeback player of the year. Now he’s the second favorite for it, at 3-1 behind Giants running back Saquon Barkley. Barkley is coming back from what all who win that award each season return from, injury.
Smith is coming back from being forgotten and, as he said, written off.
Not only is he clearly out-performing Wilson by every measure so far, Seattle currently owns the sixth-overall pick in the 2023 draft. That the selection Denver traded to the Seahawks. Seattle is in first place, yet has been rising to the top of the next draft.
Now, THAT’S a deal.
Long season still ahead
Yet the Seahawks are just 4-3. They are only two games, albeit dominant wins, removed from 2-3 and problems. They have the rolling Giants coming in. The Seahawks have yet to play the 3-3 Rams, who have dominated them recently. They have another game against the 49ers, who steamrolled them 27-7 last month. That was back when the Seahawks still didn’t trust Smith enough to keep running back DeeJay Dallas from taking direct snaps and throwing on disastrous red-zone plays.
Seattle still has to play Tom Brady and the Buccaneers in Germany, Mahomes and the Chiefs in Kansas City plus the surprisingly good Jets.
“We’re happy with it,” Smith said of leading the division, “but we’re not done. We have a lot of work to do and we’re not done.
“It’s just the beginning. It’s just the start of the season for us, and we have to get this thing rolling. We’re extremely excited with where we are at, but we know we have to get better and keep moving forward.
“I know I can play better.”
