This time last year, Geno Smith was an NFL poster boy for quarterbacks for all the wrong reasons.
As a former 2013 second-round pick, Smith crashed and burned with the New York Jets before bouncing around the league with three other teams. He’d eventually find a home with the Seattle Seahawks, but no one took him seriously. He was in Seattle to first be a backup to Russell Wilson, then a one-year veteran stand-in before Pete Carroll and Co. could appropriately move on to their quarterback of the future.
Boy, has Smith flipped the narrative of his once journeyman career on its head.
Roughly a month after winning the NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award, the Seahawks are committing Smith for the long term. That’s right, according to a report from NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport, Smith is returning to Seattle in a big way. (It’s also a win-win for both sides.)
In a perfect culmination of Smith continually fighting for his place in pro football, the Seahawks have re-signed the 32-year-old to a three-year, $105 million deal:
It's a 3-year deal worth $105M for Geno Smith, source said. The deal is now done and agreed. https://t.co/EF0GLH768V
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 6, 2023
Without knowing the guaranteed money in place, it’s impossible to say how much the Seahawks are in love with Smith. Or that they won’t use the No. 5 overall pick to take a younger QB in the 2023 NFL Draft. But did you ever conceive of a world where Smith is getting a $105 million contract with an opportunity to earn $52 million in the first season?
I must be honest: I think you’re lying if you say otherwise.
About a decade ago, Smith was a mistake machine, throwing 21 interceptions in the 2013 season. As time passed, he could barely complete 60 percent of his passes and morphed into more “Jets meme” than a bona fide reliable signal-caller. For Smith to be rewarded for his persistence and resilience now, to become one of the NFC’s top leaders under center, is mind-boggling.
It should probably also cast further doubt on where the Jets go wrong (likely almost everywhere) once they have to develop a young quarterback. No wonder Smith couldn’t get off the launch pad at first. The bumbling Jets had drafted him. He was battling uphill from the jump.
Smith finding a long-term home with the Seahawks is a testament to never throwing in the towel. This is an ideal example of what it means never to surrender your dreams. Fans and folks on the outside looking in are one thing. But how many people in the football world wrote Smith off from reaching this destination? Please give me a rough estimate. Seventy percent? Eighty percent? Ninety? Yet he kept plugging away, finding a pro football home, finding means to stay relevant, patiently biding his time for the starting chance the Seahawks gave him in the 2022 season.
And once Smith had his shot in hand, he didn’t waste it. His Comeback Player Award and a 2022 Pro Bowl selection state emphatically as much.
Every last bit of this new lucrative compensation is so well-earned and well-deserved:
Geno Smith’s career earnings through 10 seasons: $17.55M
Geno Smith’s *annual* value on his new contract: $35M
What a journey. So incredibly well-deserved.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) March 6, 2023
In September, in a manner only he could, Smith talked about his career journey through adversity after a defining opening-season win over Wilson’s Broncos. He mentioned how the “haters” wrote to him over the years, critiquing his quarterbacking performance. Fittingly, with a smile from ear to ear, Smith would say, “I ain’t write back, though.”
Such a positive mentality carried Smith through his resurgent 2022 and through all the tough times when he was an NFL afterthought. It was the right tunnel-vision approach to his many unfortunate missteps over the years.
Now Smith is a $100-plus million quarterback.
And I think he’s taught us one vital lesson about what to do when the going gets rough: we would all do well never to write the haters back.