The Seahawks made the news official yesterday that quarterback Geno Smith is re-signing with the organization on a one-year deal. While we’re pretty much alone in this prediction, we believe Smith coming back will preclude the team from selecting a quarterback in the 2022 NFL draft – certainly not with the No. 9 overall pick.
That would make Smith the clear favorite to start Week 1, even if they do take a flyer on one of the non-Malik Willis QB prospects in this class. Let’s see what we can learn from Smith’s passing charts from the 2021 season.
For some reason, Next Gen Stats doesn’t have the passing chart from the Seahawks’ dominant victory over the Jaguars in Week 8. That was easily Smith’s best performance of his career, so it’s unfortunate not to have that. Then again, the defensive effort by Jacksonville in that game was the worst we witnessed during the entire 2021 season, so Smith’s impressive tape and numbers from that day have to be taken with a grain of salt and a big asterisk in any case.
Here are the passing charts from the three other games that Geno Smith appeared in last year.
Week 5 vs. Rams (4th quarter only)
Week 6 vs. Steelers
Week 7 vs. Saints
What we see is a lot of completions under 10 yards, befitting a quarterback with conservative, game manager inclinations. You will not find many balls thrown 25 or more air yards very often. That’s a huge difference from former franchise QB Russell Wilson, who routinely completed 40+ yard bombs in almost every game he played in Seattle.
No. 7 simply can’t match Wilson’s deep ball accuracy/power, as is the case for most NFL quarterbacks. However, the tradeoff is that he’s much more inclined to attack the middle and intermediate areas of the field to move the chains, which are practically blind spots in Russell Wilson’s game due to his lack of size and his stretch every play out looking deep beyond reason impulses.
Wilson’s approach to the position and his personality may be annoying. However, a quarterback that can’t threaten a defense vertically is a bad quarterback in today’s NFL.
Smith is a significant step down from Mr. Dangerous, but we believe coach Pete Carroll is more-than willing to take that tradeoff – even if he says they want a mobile QB who takes risks. If he did he would have insisted on keeping Wilson.
At the end of the day, Carroll believes he can win modern NFL games through a strong rushing attack, quality defense and sharp special teams play. He’s fundamentally wrong about that and it will probably be what will ultimately cost him his job – along with the two atrocious blockbuster trades involving Wilson and strong safety Jamal Adams.
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