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If Geno Smith had continued to ball out the way he did from Weeks 1-5 last season he might well have been in the MVP conversation at the end of the year. While Smith couldn’t maintain that hot early pace, there’s still plenty of reasons to be bullish about him heading into 2023. Seattle’s offense should be even better with Jaxon Smith-Njigba completing the picture at wide receiver and another year of experience for Smith working with this group.
If things go right, Smith might even be back in that MVP chatter this year. Last week Adam Schein at NFL.com named Smith one of his seven sleeper picks for MVP:
“Just prior to the 2013 NFL Draft, I wrote that Geno was a franchise quarterback worthy of a first-round pick. That take got so cold that Fred Segal featured it in his Freezing Cold Takes book Football Media’s Most Inaccurate Predictions — and the Fascinating Stories Behind Them. When I had Fred on my Rise and Schein podcast last offseason, I told him that he’d need to retract it when Geno became a star. Less than a year later, Smith is the reigning Comeback Player of the Year, fresh off a Pro Bowl season, having just signed a three-year, $105 million extension.
While it would be great to see Smith pull this off, a whole lot of it will be beyond his control. NFL MVPs not only have to produce great numbers and play at a consistently high level, their teams usually are among the best in the league. For Seattle to get there they’ll need a radically-improved defense that gets far more pressure on opposing QBs than they did last season, as well as a 180-degree turn in run defense.
If the Seahawks can manage those two things, there should be no limits for this team or anyone on it in 2023. Those are two extra-large ifs, though.
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