NFL free agent QBs: How likely is it Geno Smith leaves Seahawks in 2023 market?
The teams that are looking, the QBs who are moving, the surprises that could be in store: 1/31/2023
One of the more frustrating jobs of a writer is to come up with headlines. You spend hours upon hours on the body of the article, only for much of its Google success to be determined by the maximum 170 characters in the title. There are times when I get joy out of coming up with some clever invitation to come read Seaside Joe (“Liar, Liar: Lance On Fire!”), but even now as I scroll back to September to find an example like that it occurs to me that I’ve mostly fallen back on being crystal clear of the subject.
This is the subject, this is the premise: Join me on a journey of Seahawks discovery
I’ve seen much worse headlines.
After writing 15,000 or so headlines about football, I’ve learned that there are so many clichés in this sub-genre of micro writing. As much as I possibly can when I possibly can, I will avoid these clichés. Some of you may recall that at one point last year, after the team acquired Drew Lock, I got pre-annoyed by the fact that so many people would chase bad puns in a lazy effort to stockpile cheap laughs. Perhaps I got doubly-lucky then that Geno Smith won the job.
“Ah, c’mon, Joe. Bad puns are funny!” No, original bad puns are funny. I’ll sit and listen to wordplay with you from hear to eternity. But it’s one of those situations where someone tells a joke, and it’s funny. You hear it a second time, there might be some juice left to squeeze. Soon enough though, the joke sucks, the comedian sucks, comedy sucks, and you find yourself six hours deep into a Tarkovsky marathon. (Which amounts to 3/4th of one Tarkovsky film, I think.)
Hence, my annoyance every time when Mike Jackson (but “Michael Jackson” when it was convenient) is involved in a play for the Seahawks and someone on the broadcast finds it hilarious to reference the fact that another person existed with the same name and became world famous. Did you know that someone else with this very common name had a song called “Beat It”???
I’m sure the Seahawks’ Jackson has loved hearing it throughout his career in high school, at Miami, and for four different NFL teams. The man is like, “Please, call me Mike” and the world responds, “Ha. I don’t think so…” At least he has Coby Bryant to commiserate with.
Prepare your loins for a 2023 draft class that includes Wanya Morris (who may be lucky that most people can’t name who’s in Boyz II Men), Bumper Pool, and James Patterson.
It’s the same thing with headlines. After 15 years of trying to come up with headlines, I find myself bumping into the same thoughts. But if I’ve written it before or many others have, I cringe at the possibility of using anything close to that idea. That’s what happened to me as I attempted to think of words that encapsulated the feeling of today’s premise, this very unoriginal starter that I didn’t come up with encroached on the left side of my brain … “The curious case of …”
NO, NO, NO, NO!
It goes on and on. And on. And on. And on.
Perhaps I am in no place to judge, giving you these very basic and straightforward headlines everyday, exchanging creativity for premise. But there’s also nothing creative about rehashing “The Curious Case of Geno Smith” and what exactly am I meant to accomplish with that headline? Like you’re supposed to read that before opening the post and think, “Oh wow, huh… I guess Geno Smith is a curious case, I never thought of it like that before!”
It also doesn’t tell you anything about what you’re clicking on. ANYTHING. “The curious case of…” could apply to anybody and you’d make sense of it: “The curious case of Cody Barton”; “The curious case of Pete Carroll”; “The curious case of the Allen trust”.
It’s just one of those first draft headline ideas that pops in a writer’s head because they’ve heard it a million times before and it’s meaningless but if you’re not interested in crafting alternatives, nobody will complain. Seaside Joe has evolved into that “nobody” who consumed all the media regurgitation and finally needs to spew it back because there’s no more room in here for it.
And no, none of these thoughts have anything to do with Geno Smith and free agent quarterbacks and potential landing spots—which is coming after the jump for Regular Joes subscribers—but I’ll guarantee you one thing…You’ve never heard these opinions from anyone else before.
As far as assessing Geno’s value and how vast his market will be in 2023, well let me tell you, that’s a bit of a curious case—
I ran through two potential QB carousel scenarios, one that is very boring (which is possible) and one that is extremely wild (which is possible), in an attmept to see where Geno Smith might land in either reality. The outcome surprised me and I’m open and hopeful to hearing arguments against my findings.
First we need to agree which teams are looking and which quarterbacks are moving and then we’ll have a better idea of where that leaves the Seattle Seahawks and Geno. This is an in-depth breakdown of:
Every team that is definitely looking, potentially looking, and seven more potential surprise teams on the market
Every QB who is definitely switching teams, potentially switching teams, and more surprises
Where those QB/team connections make the most sense
Where that leaves Geno Smith and the Seahawks