Post-Geno Smith trade fans asking How did Seahawks get here? What the %*$* are they doing?
Last week John Schneider was sympathizing with Seahawks fans.
“I feel bad for our fans, not making the playoffs two years in a row,” Seattle’s general manager said at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis. “We’ve got to get Lumen (Field) rocking again. We’ve got to get speed on defense, and be able to run the ball, and get our identity.”
How does the GM feel for Seahawks fans now?
Because many of them want to know what the hell he’s doing.
This time last week, the Seahawks had a record-setting, two-time Pro Bowl quarterback. Schneider was in negotiations with the QB’s agent on a new contract for him to remain Seattle’s guy for the foreseeable future.
Now? The Seahawks have none of that.
They have worrying backup Sam Howell, and nothing else. Nothing, except risk at the sport’s most important position.
How did they get here?
That and “What the hell is Schneider doing?” are what folks across the Pacific Northwest are asking after the Seahawks agreed Friday to trade Geno Smith to Pete Carroll’s Las Vegas Raiders for a third-round choice in the NFL draft next month.
Schneider traded a proven, veteran starting quarterback coming off a career-high 4,320 yards setting two team passing records last season. In return he got a late second-day pick in next month’s draft.
Yet Schneider didn’t trade his franchise quarterback for the second time in three years — Russell Wilson to Denver in the spring of 2022 to give Smith the job — without a succession plan already in place.
The negotiating period with unrestricted free agents begins Monday. So, too, does two days of leaks on new big-bucks agreements.
Sam Darnold, coming off a 4,300-yard passing season with 35 touchdowns for 14-3 Minnesota, is the top free-agent quarterback on the market. He’s only 27, seven-plus years younger than Smith.
The free-agent market opens Wednesday, the first day of the new league year. That’s when the Seahawks and Raiders will officially announce the Smith trade, and teams will make official free-agent signings.
“This next five to seven days is really the most important time where you have to be able to pivot — like, these huge pivots — at whatever position. So you have to scenarios, contingency plans setup,” Schneider told KIRO-AM radio this week.
That was the day before he agreed to trade Smith.
Timeline of the Geno Smith trade
Spring into summer, 2024: Smith and his agent, Chafie Fields, ask Schneider and his contract team for negotiations on a new contract. At the time, two years and $50 million in base salary remained on the three-year, $75 million deal he signed following his 2022 in which he broke three of Wilson’s team passing records for a season, went to the playoffs for the first time in his career and earned his first Pro Bowl selection.
Schneider told Smith, no, the Seahawks wouldn’t talk about a new deal for their quarterback until the offseason of early 2025. In his 15 years as GM Schneider has consistently re-signed cornerstone players to extensions right before or in the first days of training camp entering the final season of their contracts. For Smith, that is this coming summer.
Jan. 5, 2025: Smith leads the team to a win over the reserves of the NFC West-champion Los Angeles Rams on the final day of Seattle’s 2024 season. Smith finishes the season setting career highs with the 4,320 yards passing plus a completion rate of 70.4%.
That and the Seahawks winning 10 games — despite missing the playoffs for the second consecutive years — earns Smith $6 million in incentive bonuses. That money is to be paid in 2025 and is tacked on to Seattle’s salary cap for this year. It pushes his cap number to $44.5 million for 2025.
Schneider knows that cap charge is untenable for the team to buy the offensive and defensive linemen it needs for next season.
After that Rams game in the finale Smith says he believes he is a top-10 quarterback, and that he thinks the Seahawks feel that way, too.
That foreshadows what he will ask for in that contract extension he’s been wanting since the previous spring.
The 10th-highest-paid quarterback in the league for 2025 is scheduled to be Tua Tagovailoa at $39.18 million per season.
Remember that number.
“This team is on its way,” Smith said.
“That’s with or without me.”
Jan. 6: Wanting a run-first play caller and more physical mindset on offense, coach Mike Macdonald fires Ryan Grubb after his one and only season as the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator.
Seattle’s offensive players are going to have their third OC in three years for the 2025 season.
Jan. 26: Macdonald and Schneider hire 37-year-old Klint Kubiak as the Seahawks’ new offensive coordinator. He was the play caller for the New Orleans Saints (2024) and Minnesota Vikings (2021). His calling card is an outside-zone running scheme in the Mike Shanahan/Denver Broncos tradition from the 1990s, and having his quarterback throwing on the move with roll outs, bootlegs and quick passes.
Feb. 11: In his introductory press conference at team headquarters in Renton, Kubiak says of Smith: “I have a lot of respect for Geno. Was a huge draw to come here and be able to get to coach him...
“So, we have high expectations for him. We’re going to push Geno and get the best out of him, and we’ll do that by pushing his teammates, as well. It’s not just his show. It’s a team thing, and he’s got to be the head of that.”
Feb. 25: Schneider says at the NFL combine in Indianapolis he is going to meet later in the week with Fields about an extension for Smith.
“Yeah, we’re going to meet with him this week, meet with his agent, see where it goes,” Schneider says to The News Tribune and a couple other Seahawks beat writers in the corner of the Indiana Convention Center.
“We expect him to be our guy. But we want to do what’s right, too.’’
Seattle wants to lower the quarterback’s scheduled charge of a team-high $44.5 million against the NFL salary cap for 2025. A new contract beyond this year is the most direct and conventional way to do that in league math.
They have to get under the cap with their top 51 contracts by the start of the new league year March 12.
Seattle is $6.5 million over the cap.
Feb. 28: Schneider meets with Fields in Indianapolis to discuss an extension for Smith.
Monday: League sources said Schneider and the Seahawks present to Fields and Smith an offer of a short-term extension worth about $40 million per year. That would be an $10 million raise from his current deal he signed in early 2023. It would put him above Tagovailoa as the 10th-highest-paid QB, in Smith’s age-35 season.
Over the next few days, Smith, through Fields, does present a counteroffer to the Seahawks. But the quarterback and his agent make it known to others around the league Smith wants $45 million per year. That would put him at sixth-highest in the NFL for 2025, per overthecap.com, pending new free-agent QB deals coming next week.
Smith wants to be just behind Joe Burrow ($46.09 million), ahead of Josh Allen ($44.73 million) and Lamar Jackson ($43.65 million).
Tuesday: The Seahawks release underperforming edge rusher Dre’mont Jones, benched (for Coby Bryant) safety Rayshawn Jenkins, defensive tackle Roy Robertson-Harris and offensive tackle George Fant.
Those moves save more than $27 million against the salary cap.
Before Wednesday: DK Metcalf tells Schneider and the Seahawks he wants to be traded.
A league source tells the TNT the Seahawks are exploring trade options to honor Metcalf’s request.
Albert Breer of SI.com later reports Schneider initially offers Smith and Metcalf to the Raiders for four-time Pro Bowl edge rusher Maxx Crosby. The Raiders, now coached by Carroll (the man who gave Smith his career re-birth in Seattle) tells the Seahawks Crosby isn’t available.
Las Vegas then signs Crosby Wednesday to an extension, the largest non-quarterback contract in NFL history.
Wednesday: Tyler Lockett announces online what the wide receiver had been thinking would happen since before last season: The Seahawks released their longest-tenured player.
Cutting the 32-year-old Lockett after his first 10 NFL seasons with Seattle saves the team $17 million against the cap.
Those moves put the team far below the cap, about $30 million under.
That changes the context to talks with Smith. The Seahawks now don’t need to extend their quarterback to have buying power in the free-agent market that opens next week.
Friday: With what he sees as an impasse with Smith wanting $45 million per year and up, Schneider agrees to trade his quarterback to the Raiders, for the latter of Las Vegas’ two picks in round three of the draft April 25.
Schneider saves $31 million in cap space. Seattle now has $62.54 million in cap space to go shop for Darnold, Justin Fields or any other free-agent quarterback next week.
Plus, there’s the four picks in the first 92 the Seahawks have in the draft to finally take a QB, for only the third time in 16 drafts with Schneider as GM.
The Raiders begin negotiating immediately with Smith on an extension.
“God is the GREATEST!!” Smith posts on X/Twitter.
“Excited to get to work and WIN.
“The time is NOW”
“Lmao crazy,” Seahawks offensive linemen Mike Jerrell posts on X/Twitter as news of the trade breaks.
Seahawks record-setting wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba responded on X/Twitter to his brother and professional baseball player Canaan Smith-Njigba writing “Jaxon wake up you gotta see this.”
JSN posted back: “Broooo I just got up you lying”
This story was originally published March 8, 2025 at 4:57 PM.
