Geno Smith was not going to win the Seattle Seahawks anything of note, so they made the correct move to trade him and hit the reset button at QB. The news broke on Friday night, and it definitely came as a bit of a shock to some:
Seahawks trading QB Geno Smith to Raiders for 2025 third-round pick.
— NFL (@NFL) March 7, 2025
(via @RapSheet, @TomPelissero, @MikeGarafolo) pic.twitter.com/yVr9dMKa4m
Geno Smith is off to the Raiders
With Seattle since 2020 in a backup and starting role, Geno Smith now heads back to the AFC and will try to stabilize the quarterback position for the lowly Las Vegas Raiders, who also hired Pete Caroll to be their head coach to kickoff the offseason. When you look at the Raiders upgrading at QB, they absolutely did that, but Smith enters one of the toughest divisions in football and is now in the much-more stacked AFC.
He is the 4th-best QB in his own division and does go to a Raiders team that is also comfortably the worst in the division as well. During his Seahawks tenure, Smith is credited with a 28-24 record, throwing for 12,961 yards, 76 touchdowns, 36 interceptions, and having a 95.9 passer rating. He does have solid numbers for sure, but over the last two seasons in Seattle, he's thrown 41 touchdowns against 24 interceptions for a 92.7 passer rating, so his TD:INT ratio has done down.
Smith will turn 35 years old during the 2025 NFL Season, so age is also beginning to get up there, and he is wanting a contract extension as well. From the Seahawks perspective, it is clear that they saw the ceiling with Geno Smith and did not want to move forward with him anymore. The age and overall talent of the QB and how far he can take the team was not good enough for Seattle.
At this point, Geno Smith feels like the perfect quarterback for any team that wants to win 8-10 games and maybe sneak into the playoffs as a Wild Card team. He is a perfectly average quarterback in the NFL but may end up getting top-10 QB money. For as bad as the Raiders have been, Geno Smith may feel like prime Joe Burrow to them.
But for the Seahawks, they get a third-round pick and get to redo their QB room for the long-term. It's clear that Seattle is entering a bit of a rebuild, as we could also see a DK Metcalf trade going down in the near future. The Las Vegas Raiders are perhaps turning into the AFC Seahawks, as they have recreated Seattle's old set-up with Pete Carroll as head coach and Geno Smith at QB.
Overall, the Seahawks won this trade and made the more 'correct' decision here.