Tag: Paxton Lynch

Seahawks officially announce re-signing of QB Geno Smith

The Seattle Seahawks officially re-signed quarterback Geno Smith, waiving tight end Justin Johnson to make room on the active roster.

The Seattle Seahawks made official the move to re-sign quarterback Geno Smith, bringing the veteran back into the fold for the 2020 campaign.

Tight end Justin Johnson was waived to make room on the 90-man roster.

Smith beat out veteran Paxton Lynch to be Seattle’s backup in 2019 after a strong performance in training camp and the preseason, where he threw for 282 yards and two touchdowns with a 100.4 passer rating.

He was not needed during the regular season at all, however, thanks to the incredible durability of starter Russell Wilson.

Smith will face competition to be the backup again this year, this time from  Anthony Gordon, who hails from Washington State and was surprisingly not selected in the 2020 NFL draft, allowing Seattle to pick him up as an undrafted free agent.

Johnson joined the Seahawks as an undrafted free agent out of Mississippi State last year, but he spent the entire 2019 season on the injured reserve with an achilles injury.

He was always a long shot to make the roster, and the team’s free agent addition of tight end Greg Olsen as well as draft picks Colby Parkinson and Stephen Sullivan all but sealed the deal for Johnson, who will now look for other opportunities as a free agent.

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Seahawks’ backup QB competition is Anthony Gordon vs. Geno Smith

The Seattle Seahawks have two players, veteran Geno Smith and undrafted rookie Anthony Gordon, competing to back up Russell Wilson in 2020.

The Seattle Seahawks were always expected to bring in a third quarterback to compete with undrafted free agent Anthony Gordon for the job of backing up ironman Russell Wilson on the active roster.

They reportedly got that done on Thursday afternoon, agreeing to terms with free agent Geno Smith, who served as Wilson’s backup during the 2019 season.

Backup quarterbacks in Seattle have not had to see the field in years, as Wilson hasn’t missed a game in his entire career and rarely misses even a single snap.

Still, it’s an important spot to feel comfortable with the next man up. Seattle would be in a load of trouble if Wilson had to miss extended time, but having a backup they feel comfortable in could help ease the pain at least a little.

Coach Pete Carroll seems to prefer his veteran backups, as evidenced by the team’s decision to draft Alex McGough in 2017 but then cut him in favor of former starter Brett Hundley just before the season began.

Last year the Seahawks had Smith compete with another experienced veteran, Paxton Lynch, before eventually handing the job to the former.

Smith, Hundley and the late Tarvaris Jackson are the most recent backups in the Emerald City, all quarterbacks with a similar skill set to Wilson and NFL experience.

That seems to spell trouble for Gordon, who was a monster in his final season in Mike Leach’s Air Raid offense at Washington State but somehow went undrafted despite a fair amount of hype.

Seattle was wise to snatch Gordon, who has impeccable accuracy as a quarterback but lacks the arm strength and awareness to be an immediate impact player at the next level.

The Seahawks attempted to keep McGough as a developmental quarterback, but after one year on the practice squad he signed elsewhere. If Smith wins the backup job again in 2020, which seems likely, the Seahawks will likely do the same with Gordon.

Wilson is still in his prime, but it might be wise for Seattle to commit to grooming a backup in his mold for the future. As long as Carroll prefers veteran backups, however, this team will struggle to develop someone as his replacement and could be in a bind when the time comes that Wilson is no longer an elite quarterback.

Of course, Wilson intends to play until he is 45, so maybe the team will continue cycling through veteran backups until then, making the need for development unnecessary for the next decade or so.

How this team handles the competition between Smith and Gordon could go a long way toward determining its long-term goals behind Wilson.

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Seattle Seahawks 2020 free agent profile: Quarterback Geno Smith

Will the Seattle Seahawks break the streak and bring back a backup QB, or will Geno Smith look for a job with more play-time potential?

*The Seattle Seahawks are heading into the 2020 offseason with 19 players set to become unrestricted free agents, which should make for another busy spring and summer for Pete Carroll and John Schneider as they look to shore up the roster and contend for the number one seed in the NFC again next year.*

Our Seahawks Wire series on Seattle’s free agents continues with quarterback Geno Smith.

The Seahawks have routinely cycled through backup quarterbacks the past few years, a tradition that has continued despite none of them ever being needed thanks to Russell Wilson’s incredible, improbable, run of health and dependability under center.

Geno Smith was perhaps the most talented backup quarterbacks the team had in recent years, which makes it seem likely that – at age 29 – he will look for an opportunity that might actually allow him to play, instead of spending the entire year on the bench.

The Seahawks seem content shuffling things around behind Wilson, so don’t expect a reunion between the two sides unless neither Smith or Seattle can find something better.

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Paxton Lynch thinks John Elway didn’t give him a fair opportunity

Paxton Lynch seemingly believes John Elway did not give him a fair shot with the Broncos.

Former Broncos quarterback Paxton Lynch seems to be a little disgruntled about his time in Denver. The former first-round pick spoke about being cut by the Broncos during an interview in December.

“I’m sure it was [Elway’s] decision at the end of the day,” Lynch told The Athletic’s Ed Bouchette [subscription required for link]. “He told me he didn’t think it was really fair the way the media treated me there. I was like, ‘Yeah, you really haven’t given me an opportunity to show them otherwise.’”

Elway has made his fair share of blunders as the Broncos’ general manager but to say he didn’t give Lynch a fair shot might be an exaggeration. Lynch started five games in Denver and didn’t look too impressive in any of them.

Then, after being cut by the Broncos, Lynch went unsigned for the entire 2018 season. Elway wasn’t the only league executive unimpressed with the QB. Last summer, Lynch failed to beat out Geno Smith for the Seahawks’ backup job. Then he landed with the Steelers but wasn’t able to beat out Devlin Hodges or Mason Rudolph for playing time after Ben Roethlisberger suffered a season-ending injury.

Again: Lynch wasn’t able to beat out Hodges, an undrafted rookie. That brings back memories of when Lynch failed to beat out an undrafted Trevor Siemian in 2016. Maybe Denver wasn’t unfair with Lynch — perhaps Lynch just isn’t good enough?

Lynch seems to have a beef with Elway but he should probably have a beef with the entire NFL. No team views him as a starter-caliber QB.

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Ex-Saints practice squad QB J.T. Barrett signs with Steelers

Former New Orleans Saints and Ohio State Buckeyes quarterback J.T. Barrett signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers practice squad in Week 17.

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Former New Orelans Saints quarterback J.T. Barrett has caught on with a new team after shuffling on and off of the Saints practice squad during his first two years in the NFL. The Pittsburgh Steelers signed Barrett to their own practice squad, the team announced Tuesday.

Barrett initially signed with the Saints out of Ohio State in May 2018, following a tryout during rookie minicamp; he went on to be released and re-signed in 28 transactions, most recently being waived on Oct. 22, 2019. That’s one shy of the dubious team record former Saints wide receiver Andy Tanner set from 2011 to 2015, having been signed, waived, or re-signed 29 times.

While it’s unlikely Barrett gets on the field at M&T Bank Stadium against the Baltimore Ravens, we can’t rule it out altogether. The Steelers are very short-handed at quarterback in the wake of year-ending injuries to Ben Roethlisberger and Mason Rudolph, with Devlin Hodges (nicknamed “Duck”) expected to close out the regular season. Paxton Lynch will back him up, rounding out this “who’s who” of NFL quarterbacks. Still, it looks like Barrett’s first real NFL action will continue to evade him.

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