At NFL combine, Seahawks GM says Geno Smith is ‘the starter until he’s not’. Hmmm ...
Definitive clarity on Geno Smith?
Not this offseason. Not from these newly led Seahawks.
Given the opportunity Tuesday at the NFL scouting combine to state directly that Smith is Seattle’s starting quarterback right now for 2024, general manager John Schneider instead said this inside the Indiana Convention Center:
“Yeah, I would think ...Yes, the starter until he’s not.”
Not exactly an iron-clad endorsement
“What we are basically doing is, you know, we have a vision,” Schneider said. “We have a plan for what we’re doing.”
The Seahawks guaranteed all $12.7 million of Smith’s base salary for 2024 by having him on the roster through a milestone date this month in the second year of his three-year, $75 million deal. The veteran who has gone from seven years of NFL benches to the Pro Bowl each of his two seasons replacing traded Russell Wilson in Seattle had a $9.6 million roster bonus due in mid-March. The Seahawks last week gave him that money now and converted half of it to a signing bonus, to save $4.8 million against this year’s NFL salary cap.
The timing of that move led to speculation the team may be looking to trade Smith, because it lessened by $4.8 million the cap liability for this year a team acquiring Smith in a trade would take on.
The team did that days before it learned the league set the cap for this year at $255.4 million. Schneider said Tuesday that was about $5-6 million above what the Seahawks were expecting. With that and the restructuring of Smith’s bonus, they have gone from being about $5 million over the cap to above $12 million under it, per estimates from overthecap.com.
“It was just to create cap room,” Schneider said of the timing, off podium to The News Tribune and reporters from four other Seattle-area outlets at the Indiana Convention Center. “It’s just a trigger that we put into most of our contracts.”
It’s a trigger the Seahawks can do unilaterally, without the player’s approval. Schneider and his salary-cap executive Matt Thomas put those options to convert roster bonus into contracts this time of year to help get the team in compliance with the cap before the start of the league year each mid-March.
“Honestly, you guys, other people made a bigger deal out of that than we did in the building,” Schneider said. “It was like, ‘Is he going to be here? Is he not going to be here?’ He was going to be here.
“It was just a matter of, when are we going to tell him we are doing this with his roster bonus.”
Nothing has changed with Smith. All options remain.
Smith could return as Seattle’s starter for a third season, at a cap charge of $26.4 million that is third-most on the team behind Jamal Adams ($26.92 million) and Tyler Lockett ($26.9 million). Seattle will still not have a quarterback of the future; Smith’s contract ends after 2025.
The Seahawks could trade Smith. They would absorb a $27 million cap charge on acceleration of signing-bonus money. That’s on the big if that another team is willing to take on his salary at his age (33) and career history.
The option that remains that seems least likely is the team cutting Smith. That would now result in a dead-cap charge of $39.7 million. Plus, even if they draft a quarterback in April — they own the 16th pick in round one then no second-round choice — cutting Smith would mean the Seahawks don’t have a quarterback with any experience on the roster.
New coach Mike Macdonald and new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb have both said they are looking forward to coaching Smith and Drew Lock this year.
Lock, the former Denver starter, has been Smith’s backup in Seattle the last two seasons. Lock’s contract has expired. He is poised to enter free agency in two weeks.
Schneider was asked if Lock was in the Seahawks’ plans for 2024.
“Hopefully,” the GM said. “We are going to meet with his agent down here (in Indianapolis this week).”
Seahawks contracts on hold
Here’s the deal on all Seahawks deals right now, existing, altered and potential. On Smith, the expired contracts of linebackers Bobby Wagner and Jordyn Brooks, of tight end Noah Fant, guard Damien Lewis, tight end Colby Parkinson and others.
They are all on hold.
The Seahawks are behind where they normally would be with free agents, their own and other teams’, at this point in the offseason. The market opens in two weeks, with the new league year March 13. A negotiating window for unrestricted free agency, for which Wagner and Brooks are eligible, begins March 11.
“I’m sure there’s some angst (among Seahawks with contract issues),” Schneider said. “I mean, I would have some angst; ‘What does my new position coach think of me?’”
Schneider said he’s asked his veteran players with contract issues in Seattle to “be patient” as the team incorporates its new, first-time head coach (hired Jan. 31) and his 23 assistants, only one of whom is a carryover from the staff of since-fired coach Pete Carroll last season (defensive assistant Karl Scott). Schneider said Tuesday the new coaches, who aren’t at this NFL combine while they install their new playbooks back at team headquarters in Renton, are still getting to know the roster. They have yet to make decisions on who fits Macdonald’s and Grubb’s systems, on whom they want to keep and whom they will let go.
“It’s sitting down with all those guys next week,” Schneider said of his coaches and veteran players. “We are going to be dealing with agents this week (in Indianapolis), as well.
“We are going to try to figure out, together, ‘Hey, what is your vision?’ We are trying to get that done.
“We literally just got done hiring (coaches). So you think of all of us sitting in a room together, we are all getting to know each other — ‘What’s important to you? What’s important to you?’ And it’s all these different people.
“Mike and I when we got together we had a vision for where we want to take this thing. But, you know, you have to get in specifics of the positions, too.”
The fact is, Schneider, Macdonald and the decision-makers on Seahawks players aren’t there yet.
“You don’t want to be pushing players on a staff — especially your first time out with a new staff,” the GM said.
“We are going to work with our coaches and figure it out.”
Then there’s the draft. That’s why Schneider, his scouts and his player-personnel people are here in Indianapolis.
NFL draft class of quarterbacks
As for Smith’s situation and Seattle’s quarterbacks of the future, the consensus is this year’s quarterbacks are the strongest of any recent draft classes. As many as four might go in the first 16 picks in April.
“This year’s draft class is a cool group. A lot of variances in there,” Schneider said.
Tuesday, Schneider again brought up the fact he’s only drafted two quarterbacks in his 14 years as Seattle’s GM. Russell Wilson was a third-round pick in 2011. That worked out OK for Seattle. Alex McGough was a now-forgotten seventh-rounder in 2018.
Schneider said “we’re not proud of” that.
But this year he’s just hired a new offensive coordinator and play caller straight from college football, and he knows a top QB prospect better than anyone in the NFL.
Grubb was the maestro for Michael Penix Jr., the Washington quarterback who threw for 4,600 and 4,900 yards his two seasons coached by Grubb at UW. Penix had 67 touchdowns against 19 interceptions with Grubb calling his plays. Penix finished second in the Heisman Trophy balloting this past season while leading the Huskies to the national championship game last month.
Asked if this was ever the year to start anew at quarterback by drafting a top one, with a new coach, with Grubb, with his new playbook going in and Penix already knowing it, the GM said, “Honestly, it doesn’t matter. No.
“I understand the question. But, no. It’s every year. I mean, just literally, if you guys sat in there with us it’s, ‘OK, this guy’s comin’ (down to us on the draft board). That guy’s comin’.’ And it doesn’t happen.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2024 at 11:58 AM.
