Up next now that season’s over: Seahawks have a $16M decision on Geno Smith by March
Geno Smith was limping. Hard.
His right knee he injured last month. hurt. So did his hip.
“Guy’s barely walking at the end, fighting his (***) off,” Mike Macdonald, his coach, told the Seahawks in the locker room after giving Smith a game ball following this season finale.
Yet the 34-year-old just broke two of his Seattle records for passing in a season.
So, yes, he believes he’s one of the league’s best.
Is he confident that his Seahawks, their decision-makers, also view him as one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks?
“Yeah,” Smith said Sunday evening on his way out of Southern California, “I am.
“Yes.”
Will they pay him like one? Again?
Smith had just finished the best touchdown game of his dozen years in the NFL when he spoke Sunday.. It was another efficient blend of quick, short, high-percentage passes with a few deep strikes. He ended his fourth game-winning drive of the season with a touchdown pass to leaping, flipping tight end Noah Fant with 3 minutes left in the season finale at the Los Angeles Rams.
Smith’s 20 completions in 27 attempts for 223 yards and four touchdown passes led his eliminated Seahawks’ rally past the NFC West-champion Rams. He earned three contract bonuses of $2 million each in Seattle’s 30-25 victory.
About 45 minutes after his 12th NFL season ended, out of the playoffs for the second consecutive January, Smith stood at a podium in a small room down the hall from the visiting locker room at SoFi Stadium. Team vice chair Bert Kolde sat in the second row of chairs listening to Smith answer questions. They were about the quarterback’s future as much as his and the Seahawks’ present.
That present, he said, made him feel like a grade-schooler.
“It sucks today. Because...man, the season’s end is like the last day of school, and all your friends have gone away,” Smith said.
“But I look forward to getting back to it.”
About that...
Smith has one year, next season, remaining on his Seattle contact. In two months, the team has to decide whether to guarantee him $16 million for 2025. That’s $3 million-plus more than Smith earned in base salary this season. Sunday, he broke his team records for a season with 4,320 yards passing and a final completion rate of 70.4%.
Last May The News Tribune asked John Schneider on the final draft of the 2024 NFL draft, when for the 13th time in 15 years the general manager did not select a quarterback: What is Seattle’s long-term plan at QB?
“Are you being serious right now?” Schneider said then. “That’s a serious question?: ‘What’s your long-term plan?’
“Well, we just traded to get Sam Howell. He’s got two years left on his (rookie) contract. He’s, what, two years younger than a lot of these guys (quarterbacks in the 2024 draft class). Geno’s here. We have a really cool room right now.”
Eight months later, the question stands. The Seahawks still do not have a quarterback of the future.
Smith’s and backup Howell’s contracts both end with the 2025 season.
Howell was the Washington Commanders’ starter in 2023. He led the league in interceptions while going 4-13 that season. After it, Schneider traded for Howell to be Smith’s backup, He is 10 years younger than Smith. He was unimpressive in limited opportunities this summer and one injury-replacement game, last month in a home loss to Green Bay.
Nothing to this point suggests Howell is ready to replace Smith.
After this finale, Smith was making his case for a new Seahawks deal past 2025.
“I love every one of my teammates, man. I love every part of this organization,” Smith said.
“Man, I have a bright future. I think y’all can see that. And I believe we have a bright future together.”
Smith also said following a second consecutive non-playoff season despite finishing 10-7 with a rookie head coach and 22 new assistant coaches.: “I’m telling you man, this team is heading in the right direction. This team is on its way.
“That’s with or without me.
“These guys in this locker room, these coaches, this organization, outstanding organization, and I believe in it. I believe the best of the best is going to happen for this team. I just want to continue to fight with these guys.”
Geno Smith cashes in
Sunday was Smith’s $6 million game.
That’s how much he stood to earn if he finished the season passing three statistical benchmarks he set in 2022. That was his first Pro Bowl and playoff season and first one replacing traded Russell Wilson as Seattle’s franchise face.
Sunday, Smith earned all three bonuses. He finished the season with a completion rate of 70.4%, above the 69.8% he had in 2022 and worth $2 million to him. He finished with 4,320 yards passing, above his 4,287 in 2022 in another $2 million bonus. And his Seahawks won 10 games, one more than in his first season as their starter. That earned him $2 million more.
Macdonald said he wasn’t keeping Smith focused all last week on the relatively meaningless game for the team over his personal, financial stake in Sunday.
“Shoot,” the rookie head man said, “he’s the one driving it. He’s like, ‘I just want to go win.’ That’s all he cared about.
“He was awesome all week. I’ll keep our conversations private, but he was great. He was awesome. All his focus all week was just about going out the right way and getting the tenth win.”
Those bonuses he earned Sunday means Smith is due a $16 million bonus in March. That’s up from a previously scheduled $10 million.
The new money comes due to him if he’s on the Seahawks roster March 16. That’s the fifth day of the new league year, per the language of his contract.
Essentially, March 16 is the Seahawks’ decision date.
Seahawks’ options with Geno Smith
Team chair Jody Allen, her vice chair Bert Kolde (who was sitting in a few feet in front of Smith as he spoke to reporters following Sunday’s game) plus Schneider and Macdonald must decide by mid-March if they want Smith to be Seattle’s quarterback.
Not just for 2025, but likely 2026, too.
To bring down Smith’s salary-cap charge down from an untenable $44.5 million currently on the Seahawks’ books for next season, team leaders are likely (if they want to keep him) to offer him a new, short-term contract. It is likely to be for two years, through 2026. That would make the NFL math work at a more team-friendly salary-cap charge for 2025.
Or they could start over.
They could choose Howell, dismissing his skittish training camp then worrisome game replacing the injured Smith last month to a lack of preparation as the entrenched backup.
They could finally draft a quarterback. But with the 18th pick in this year’s draft the best passers in this year’s class of collegians, the ones who could help Seattle most and most quickly, will be gone.
Trade up for one of those top QBs, you say? Schneider hasn’t shown in 15 years as the team’s GM the willingness to trade up higher in the first round. He habitually trades down, often out of round one, to hoard more picks.
Sunday evening in suburban Los Angeles, Smith was asked what the important aspects of his and his agents’ negotiations with the Seahawks will be in the coming weeks and months.
Smith didn’t answer.
“Those are things that I’ll talk to the people that I need to talk to about,” he said.
“I appreciate the question, but I like to keep a lot of things internally and in-house.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
