Seahawks GM: No true talks before trading Geno Smith, thought he’d get DK Metcalf to stay
The Seahawks’ contract negotiations to keep Geno Smith didn’t last long.
Because Smith didn’t want them to.
What of Seattle then following its trading of Smith with the second, jolting trade of DK Metcalf to the Steelers?
“We want guys who want to be here.”
That was Seattle general manager John Schneider Thursday, explaining why he traded the Seahawks’ franchise quarterback then their hulking, two-time Pro Bowl wide receiver over an extraordinary, three-day span last weekend.
“The (new) offensive staff was looking at me like I had five heads,” Schneider said.
“They came here thinking Geno Smith was the quarterback, that DK Metcalf was here...”
Four days after those deals went down, Schneider explained to beat reporters in the long hallway from the team’s locker room to main meeting room of their Virginia Mason Athletic Center how the deals happened.
And why.
“We made an offer to Geno (last Monday, March 3), tried to extend him,” Schneider said. “It became apparent that we weren’t going to be able to get a deal done.
“Yeah, it wasn’t like a very long negotiation.”
That’s because the Seahawks were believed to have offered $35-40 million per season on a short-term extension beyond Smith’s final contract year of 2025. Smith did not accept that — and he and his agent Chafie Fields did not give a counteroffer, The News Tribune has since learned.
Smith is believed to have wanted $45 million annually, befitting what he says he is: a top-10 quarterback in the NFL.
The Seahawks didn’t see it that way.
“And so, as a staff, we had to be prepared to pivot,” the GM said.
The NFL negotiating period for unrestricted free agents was days away. Schneider had already surveyed his coaches to ask if the negotiations with Smith were to stall, which alternative free-agent quarterback would they want for 2025 and beyond.
Their first choice: Sam Darnold.
The 27-year-old veteran was the most coveted QB on the market. That was from his 4,300-yard passing season with 35 touchdowns for the 14-3 Minnesota Vikings, who were not re-signing him.
“Always having a contingency plan,” Schneider said.
That plan gained backing, and realism, last month when the Las Vegas Raiders hired Pete Carroll as coach after his year away following the Seahawks firing him from 15 years running the team. Schneider knew with Carroll back in the NFL, leading a team in need of a quarterback, he likely had a ready trade partner if Seattle’s negotiations with Smith went nowhere.
Smith reveres Carroll. He is the coach that revived the 34-year-old Smith’s career. In 2022 after the Seahawks traded Russell Wilson — another who “didn’t want to be here” anymore — to Denver, Carroll gave Seattle’s franchise-QB job to Smith. That was even though Smith was coming off seven consecutive seasons with one-year contracts at minimum league salary being a seldom-used backup for four teams.
Carroll’s decision led to Smith making two Pro Bowls and his first career playoff start, breaking four team passing records and earning a $75 million extension from the Seahawks before the 2023 season.
The one coach on earth Smith will play for in a second is Pete Carroll.
Carroll and the Raiders had targeted Matthew Stafford, who was rumored to be available in a trade from the Los Angeles Rams. Then last week, the Rams said they had re-worked Stafford’s contract and they were keeping him as their quarterback.
Schneider made his offer to Smith on Monday. The GM waited Tuesday into Wednesday for a counteroffer that never came.
“There was no back and forth,” Schneider said. “That was when it was pretty evident that we should turn to the Raiders.”
So, with Stafford staying with the Rams and Carroll knowing and loving Smith like no one else in the league, the Seahawks traded Smith to Las Vegas Friday. Seattle got back a third-round choice from the Raiders in next month’s draft.
The Seahawks said goodbye officially to Smith on Thursday, about three hours before they officially said hello to Darnold.
“We had several guys we were interested in,” Schneider said. “Made the trade.
“And we were able to get the guy at the top of the list.
“That doesn’t happen all of the time.”
The Seahawks introduced Darnold earlier Thursday. Thursday afternoon upstairs at team headquarters he signed a three-year contract to replace Smith. It has $55 million guaranteed and could be worth up to $100.5 million.
“Once we decided to make the move with Geno, understanding who was out there, definitely Sam became the number-one focus pretty quickly,” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said.
How much did Carroll taking the Raiders job allow for Macdonald, Schneider and the Seahawks to pivot so quickly?
“When you are at the combine (late last month into early March) you have a ton of discussions with a lot of teams. That’s what we talked about down there,” Schneider said of the Raiders in Indianapolis, where he also met with Fields, Smith’s agent. “Like, the landscape being set up that week.
“So you have to be ready as a staff to be flexible and head in different directions.
“And that was one of them (trading for Smith) that had become evident, once they lost out on Stafford.”
DK Metcalf wanted out
Metcalf and Schneider have a close, personal relationship. They have since the GM traded back into the end of the second round of the 2019 draft to select Metcalf, months after the wide receiver fractured his neck on a kickoff for the University of Mississippi was told by a doctor he’d never play football again.
Metcalf came to Schneider about the time the Seahawks decided to release Tyler Lockett, their longest-tenured player, early last week. Metcalf told him he wanted a trade.
Schneider told him he and the team would explore that. But the GM thought he and Metcalf would work it out and the wide receiver would stay in Seattle.
“DK and I were having very, like — a lot of personal discussions. I thought we could fix it, handle it. Whatever ‘it’ was,” Schneider said.
He was speaking Thursday about the same time Metcalf was signing a new contract and speaking to reporters in Pittsburgh — where he’s the Steelers’ new number 4.
“And at the end of the day, it was a ‘no,’ and he wanted to be traded,” Schneider said.
So the Seahawks did what they’d just done two days earlier with Smith.
“We pivoted,” Schneider said. “Moved forward.”
Trading DK Metcalf
Schneider shopped Metcalf longer than he needed to with Smith, because unlike the quarterback Seattle’s GM didn’t have a team he knew would trade for Metcalf immediately. The Seahawks initially asked for a first- and a third-round pick for the wide receiver. When they didn’t get that, Schneider dropped his price to a second-round pick on Sunday.
Later Sunday afternoon, Pittsburgh gave him that. The Seahawks and Steelers flipped their the sixth- and seventh-round picks, too.
“It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks,” Macdonald said.
The trade of Metcalf became official Thursday, the second day of the new league year.
And the end of a seismic week that has set the Seahawks on a new course.
“We want guys who won’t be here, you know what I mean? We want guys that believe in what we’re doing,” Schneider said.
“And you’d have to ask him (Metcalf). For one reason or another, it was he just wanted to move on and get a fresh start.”
This story was originally published March 13, 2025 at 4:25 PM.
