Geno Smith nearly perfect in clutch, 10 points late send Seahawks past Washington 29-26
The night before Geno Smith got a reminder from his coach.
“Quiet the voice in your head. Quiet the mind.”
You think you’ve been mad at Smith? Including during the first half of the Seahawks’ latest game when you may have joined the fans in Lumen Field that were booing the home quarterback? Smith says he is harder on him than you are. That “I can be my own worst enemy sometimes...and sometimes that gets to me.
And after eight turnovers in four games including a 34-point loss last weekend at Baltimore, Smith doubling down being difficult on himself.
Then Sunday, before he walked onto the field for a final drive with 52 seconds remaining and Seattle’s game with the Washington Commanders tied at 26, Pete Carroll had another reminder for Smith.
“If we’ve got to go to overtime, we go to overtime. Let’s make great decisions here.”
“I think,” Smith said, “that was Coach’s way of reminding me not to do nothing crazy with the football right there.”
He didn’t. He was crazy good with it.
With third down and 38 seconds left at his own 31-yard line, when a misfire would give Washington the ball and a chance to win the game, the Seahawks’ recently erratic quarterback darted a pass to DK Metcalf. That got the ball to midfield.
Out of time outs, Smith connected with Metcalf again, over the middle. The hulking wide receiver then spun inside and dragged two Commanders with him to the Washington 25-yard line.
Smith spiked the ball to stop the game clock with 3 seconds left. After Washington took its final time out, Jason Myers drilled his fifth field goal of the game, from 43 yards, as time expired. That gave the Seahawks a 29-26 victory.
It wasn’t as reassuring to Seattle as it was relieving.
The Seahawks bounced back from a 34-point loss at Baltimore to improve to 6-3, the same record San Francisco has atop the NFC West. The 49ers come to Seattle for a Thanksgiving night showdown in 11 days. First, the Seahawks play next weekend at the Los Angeles Rams (3-6). They were idle Sunday.
The Seahawks improved to 45-19 since 2012 after an in-season loss. That .698 winning percentage following a loss entering Sunday was the best in the NFL in that span.
Smith just stood on the sideline with hands on his hips as Myers’ field goal split the uprights. Smith then trotted to the center of the field, hugged teammate Brady Russell from the field goal team. He hugged Myers.
And he walked off a winner for the sixth time in nine games — despite all the noise about him.
Metcalf said he didn’t hear any boos of Smith Sunday.
“I’m not paying any attention to that. I know Geno Smith is a great quarterback,” he said after he caught seven of Smith’s 12 throws to him, for 98 yards. “He’s led us to a lot of big victories, even last year, this year, two years ago.
“We just continue to believe in him.
“He doesn’t listen to outside noise.”
Smith completed 31 of a season-high 47 passes. His 369 yards passing were his most in his 11 NFL seasons — including the last two seasons since coach Pete Carroll chose him to replace traded Russell Wilson as Seattle’s QB. He threw two touchdown passes.
He was 9 for 11 passing for 100 yards and a touchdown on Seattle’s final two offensive possessions, with the game on the line.
And, most important to Carroll and the team: For the first time in five games, Smith did not turn the ball over.
“He REALLY is poised. And he really is confident,” Carroll said. “He’s clear as a bell to talk to. There’s no distraction in him, at all.
“And that’s why he was available for that moment. And he came through.”
Safety Jamal Adams said the Seahawks believe in Smith even if their fans don’t — or don’t always.
“Obviously, everybody’s going to put the heat on Geno, because he’s the quarterback or whatnot,” Adams said. “You know, he just rose to the challenge, like he always does, man.
“He came out and he had it on his mind. He knew, obviously, he was going to go down and punch it in.”
Helping Geno Smith
All week, Carroll said it. Shane Waldron, the play caller, said it. Teammates said it.
“We need to help Geno,” they said of Smith, coming out of Seattle’s 37-3 loss at Baltimore.
How did the Seahawks help their quarterback Sunday against Washington?
On one big play the officials, of all people, did.
Smith threw errantly, high and too far left, of slanting Metcalf on a fourth and 5 with 4 1/2 minutes left in a tie game. There was contact between Seattle’s big wide receiver and Washington cornerback Benjamin St-Juste before the bad pass arrived. In this offense-first NFL, though that’s often not a penalty.
It was this time: pass interference, 5 yards and a first down. The league’s most penalized wide receiver the last three seasons actually had a call go his way.
Smith took the gift and then threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Lockett just inside the goal line to finish his best drive of the game. It gave the Seahawks a 26-19 lead with 3:47 left.
But then Washington got to the Seattle 43-yard line, for a fourth and 1 with 1:28 left. Sam Howell completed a pass to Terry McLaurin for the first down. Then on third and 10 and Seattle blitzing linebacker Bobby Wagner, Howell had time to look at four receivers. Dyami Brown eventually came wide open across the middle for a 35-yard touchdown pass. That re-tied the game at 26 with 52 seconds left in regulation.
“We were hot on the sideline — I know I was — just the fact that we gave up that last touchdown to tie the game up,” Adams said.
“We need we had enough time that our offense was going to go down and punch the ball in.”
Then Smith threw for all the yards the Seahawks needed for Myers to win the game at the end.
The Seahawks and Waldron ran out of two- and three-tight end formations 21 times, by unofficial count. Twelve of those plays were runs, for 55 yards. Seattle also had six passes, three complete, for 46 yards and no sacks plus three penalties while in multiple tight ends.
The other thing they did after saying they would to help Smith: Play-action passes. Smith threw eight of them. He completed six after faking hand-offs, for 98 yards and a touchdown.
At the end, in the frantic 2-minute drills, it was straight drop backs to pass. The clock and situation dictated that.
Ultimately, how did Carroll see him and the Seahawks helping Smith this week?
“I think it was a beautiful illustration of it. Everybody did right down the stretch,” Carroll said.
“He had great plays from everybody. The catches, and the catches and runs. ...He doesn’t have to be the whole show. He has to be the point guard, and be in the middle of it.
“He was exactly that today.”
Helping Geno Smith
Smith had his third 300-yard passing game this season.
How did they help Smith more Sunday?
First, they ran it 26 times, for 120 yards. That’s twice more carries than Seattle’s running backs had in each of their last two games.
By getting the ball to running back Kenneth Walker. On a pass.
Smith threw one of his eight play-action passes to Walker, a check down only a couple yards across the line of scrimmage. The lead rusher sprinted past every Commander back to Patton on Salute to Service Day for a jolting, 64-yard touchdown in the third quarter.
That gave Seattle its first lead, its only touchdown and the home fans packed again into Lumen Field their first in-game life.
Suddenly some of the fans who were booing Smith earlier were chanting “Ge-NO! Ge-No!”
But the Commanders then unleashed their running backs on Seattle.
After running just seven times in its first 50 plays, Washington ran right at a Seahawks defense that had allowed 122, 155 and 298 yards on the ground its previous three games. Three rushes for 32 yards set up Sam Howell’s 19-yard touchdown pass to wide-open running back Antonio Gibson. Washington’s second touchdown throw to a running back Seattle left alone re-tied the game at 19 with 8 minutes left.
Geno Smith’s decision-making
Smith was erratic throwing passes in the flat to running backs, over the middle to wide receivers and, once, in the slot to open tight end Noah Fant. On that last example, Smith threw to an area Fant just didn’t run to.
Some in the home crowd at Lumen Field booed after that incomplete pass.
Carroll said there were times in Seattle’s sputtering first half it appeared Smith didn’t know where he was throwing the ball to, but that he receivers didn’t help him with their decisions on routes. Asked if that was the Fant play and incomplete pass, Carroll refused to answer.
Smith was 16 for 27 passing in the first half. Seattle was 3 for 8 on third downs, at least better than its 1 for 12 at Baltimore. The Seahawks’ possessions in the opening half: Field goal, punt, field goal, punt, field goal and a frustrating end to the half.
Smith’s last pass attempt of the half cost Seattle a chance for three points and the lead into the third quarter.
After Myers’ third field goal tied the game at 9, Washington’s hurry and Seahawks cornerback Riq Woolen’s pass breakup on 3rd and 3 gave Seattle’s offense a possession to end the half they didn’t expect.
With 15 seconds left and Seattle just using its final timeout of the half, Smith dropped back to pass again from Washington’s 34-yard line. A 52-yard field goal attempt for Jason Myers was in the bag — as long as Smith didn’t take a sack. As he stepped up in the pocket, the quarterback didn’t feel two Commanders closing in on him. When defensive end Casey Toohill finally hit him, Smith feebly attempted to chuck the ball 3 yards to avoid the sack, to an offensive lineman.
That’s intentional grounding. The penalty happening that late in the half meant a 10-second run-off. The play ended with 7 seconds left in the half. So the first half clock expired without Myers getting a chance for that field goal.
The Seahawks trudged off the field still tied at 9, instead of with the lead.
Carroll wasn’t happy with all the offense’s decision-making in the first half, but he didn’t specify an opinion about the end of the half.
A measure of how inaccurate Smith was to begin the game: Even though he was pressured on just 14% of his drop backs in the first half, he completed only 2 of 7 passes thrown beyond 10 yards.
That’s how Seattle had 225 yards and 13 first downs in the half, but only nine points.
Boye Mafe record
On a Washington third down from the Seahawks 21-yard line in the third quarter and the score tied at 9, Boye Mafe ran an inside stunt. That got him past Commanders right tackle Andrew Wylie for one of the first times Sunday.
Mafe broke in free on Howell, sacking him to force a Commanders field goal. Mafe had a sack for the seventh consecutive game. That broke Michael Sinclair’s Seahawks record from 1997-98.
“They had a lot of variations in chips (by backs and tight ends) and things,” Mafe said.
The Commanders got a 48-yard catch and run by running back Brian Robinson to set up that field goal after Mafe’s sack.
It was the second time Sunday Howell rolled left and threw late to Robinson for a long catch and sprint untouched to the end zone. The first was for a 51-yard touchdown 90 seconds into the game.
The score came after Adams blitzed free in on Howell but missed the tackle and the sack, allowing the quarterback to escape.
“We call those lay-ups. And I missed a lay-up,” Adams said, six weeks into his return from missing 13 months following a torn quadriceps tendon.
“Man, I was almost TOO free, boss. Honestly, my eyes were just so big, man, like a kid in the candy store. Obviously, I just didn’t make the play.
“I’m just glad we didn’t go to overtime, man. That knee was bitin’ on me.”
This story was originally published November 12, 2023 at 4:51 PM.
