Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes admires how smooth Seahawks’ Geno Smith’s passes are ‘every throw’
The latest fan of the season Geno Smith is having leading the Seahawks?
Patrick Mahomes.
The Kansas City Chiefs’ All-Pro quarterback, Super Bowl most valuable player and favorite to win his second NFL MVP award this season has been watching film of Seahawks games this week. He’s preparing to play Seattle Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium.
Mahomes has taken particular notice of how pretty Smith’s throws are.
“First off, every throw he throws is like a perfect spiral,” Mahomes told reporters in Kansas City Tuesday about Smith. “I know that gets taken for granted in this league, but he throws a perfect spiral.
“Every throw.”
Smith is five years older than the 27-year-old Mahomes. He was drafted into the NFL four years before the Chiefs got their franchise centerpiece.
Smith almost blushed Wednesday when told of Mahomes’ compliment.
“I appreciate Patrick, man,” Smith said, chuckling.
“I feel the same way about his game. He’s one of the best in the game, and he’s already got a Hall-of-Fame resume. To be so young, that’s pretty impressive.
“Yeah, I just try my best to throw passes so they can catch them.”
Smith’s dependable and constant spirals are a large reason why he’s spent this season, his first one starting after seven years as a backup for four teams, leading the league in completion rate. It’s at 71% entering Smith’s game Saturday against Mahomes.
Smith completed 16 consecutive throws during Seattle’s home loss to San Francisco last week. That was one short of the Seahawks’ record in a game, by Hall of Famer Warren Moon in 1998 versus Oakland.
Smith was the NFC’s offensive player of the month for October. He began this season tying an NFL record with 12 consecutive games completing 60% of his passes with an passer rating above 80.
The others to do that: Aaron Rodgers in 2011, Peyton Manning in 2009 and Steve Young in 1992. All won the NFL MVP award at the end of those seasons.
Smith’s 71.4% is the eighth-highest completion percentage in NFL history by a full-time starting quarterback in a team’s first 14 games.
“I definitely want to throw a catchable ball,” Smith said. “I want to make sure, you know...that’s part of accuracy. That’s a part of being a good quarterback, throwing your guys catchable footballs.”
DK Metcalf appreciates how consistently nice Smith’s throws have been all season. Metcalf leads the Seahawks with 79 receptions through 14 games, for 924 yards with six touchdowns. Tyler Lockett leads the team with eight touchdown receptions.
Lockett won’t play in Kansas City, near where he broke his dad’s records at Kansas State. Lockett had surgery on Monday to repair his broken right hand.
“Yeah, it starts with confidence. He has confidence when he throws to his receivers or running backs out of the backfield,” Metcalf said of Smith’s passes.
“We can feel it every time we catch the ball and see the ball thrown at us that it is a pretty easy, catchable ball.”
For this weekend’s game, Smith is even more focused on making his passes easy to catch.
Saturday is Kansas City is forecast to be the coldest regular-season game in Seahawks history: A predicted “high” temperature of 12 degrees, with wind gusts of up to 20 mph. The National Weather Service has issued a wind-chill warning for Kansas City from noon Thursday to noon Saturday, kickoff time. Wind chills are expected to be down near 30 degrees below zero.
The coldest game in Seahawks history is minus-6 degrees with 20-below wind chills in the NFC wild-card playoffs at Minnesota on Jan. 10, 2016.
Smith is a native of Miami. He played collegiately at West Virginia, then for the New York Jets to begin his NFL career.
He said he’s keying on hand warmers for Saturday in ice-box Kansas City — and more dependable spirals that are easy for his receivers to catch.
“Especially when it’s cold, you don’t want to be trying to fire it too hard,” Smith said.
“You know it’s tough on those guys trying to make those catches.”
This story was originally published December 21, 2022 at 2:29 PM.
