Seattle Seahawks: Geno Smith adds depth for worst case scenario

The Seattle Seahawks have signed Geno Smith who will compete with Paxton Lynch for the backup quarterback job behind Russell Wilson.

Russell Wilson has not missed a start since entering the NFL, but everyone’s luck comes to an end and the Seattle Seahawks prepared for a worst case scenario by adding Geno Smith.

Wilson has taken his fair share of hits and has been hampered in several games during his career, but he has always persevered through the pain. Now that Wilson is entering his age-31 season and has signed a massive extension, the Seahawks are looking to put some insurance behind their star quarterback.

Currently, the Seahawks have undrafted free agent Taryn Christion, Paxton Lynch, Wilson and now Smith serving as quarterbacks on their offseason roster. Christion is obviously the odd man out just like Alex McGough was last year.

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There’s almost no chance the Seahawks keep four quarterbacks on the active roster, meaning Christion will either end up on the practice squad or be cut before the start of the regular season. That leaves Lynch and Smith to compete for the backup spot behind Wilson.

The last time Smith started a game was back in 2017 when. He interrupted Eli Manning‘s consecutive stats streak. The last time Lynch started was also in 2018 when he went 0-2, tossing more interceptions than touchdowns. Both Lynch and Smith are nothing more than career backups at this point, but I’d say that Smith is probably the more serviceable of the two.

While Lynch has never played in more than three games in a season and was pretty much a major bust from day one, Smith actually started for two full seasons before getting benched. He’s put up far more game tape than Lynch and has shown the ability to make plays at times while Lynch, as a first-round pick, couldn’t even stick in Denver for more than two years.

It should be noted that the Seahawks have been willing, because of Wilson’s durability, to only carry one backup quarterback for the entirety of the regular season. In the past, the team had kept players like Trevone Boykin, Austin Davis, Brett Hundley, or Tarvaris Jackson around as the sole backups to Wilson.

Smith will be Seattle’s most experienced and best backup quarterback since Jackson, and he should beat out Lynch for the job easily. Of course, the Seahawks have no intention of ever playing Smith and hope that he’ll just serve as a placeholder on the sideline during the upcoming season. Wilson has started every game in his seven-year career (112 games), Seattle doesn’t want to see that streak come to an end.