Why Geno Smith's job should be on the line this week against Cowboys

Why Seahawks should bench Geno Smith for Drew Lock if Seattle's offense hits rock bottom: 1730

Over the past month, I’ve done little else—outside of my job writing about football—other than watch old seasons of the reality competition show “Big Brother”. I’ve watched 18 seasons of “Big Brother” in the last four weeks, which is no small feat given that there are usually over 30 episodes per year (with some strategic fast forwarding), so you’ll have to forgive me if at times I start using it as an analogous comparison to the Seattle Seahawks.

Finally that day has arrived.

For those of you unaware, “Big Brother” is a competition that at its heart has a simple concept: People live in a house together and every week two houseguests are nominated for eviction, then they get one chance to save themselves in a competition for the ‘The Power of Veto’, then someone is voted out at the end of the week. The last person standing wins $500,000.

Really it’s not that much different than life on Pete Carroll’s practice squad.

An interesting evolution of the show over its many seasons is just how much more bureaucratic and sugarcoated the process of nominating two people for eviction has become, as the person doing the nomination doesn’t want to upset anyone (they may need their vote to win a half-million dollars, after all) or “put a target on their backs” to be voted out the next week. So it has gone from the Head of Household (the nominator) saying stuff like, “Well, I just don’t like you, so you gotta go!”, also known as the more entertaining form of reality television, to something that may help them avoid getting blood on their hands:

“You’re a great competitor and I respect you so much that I want to give you a chance to compete to stay in the house.”

Even though the Head of Household is lying, this is a common phrase repeated at the nomination ceremony to try and gain favor with the person who they’re trying to evict. Lying to get ahead? Who knew! Well, the Seahawks wouldn’t necessarily be lying if they told Geno Smith something similar this week.

“Geno, you’re a great competitor and we respect you so much that we want to give you a chance to compete for your job as Seattle’s starting quarterback beyond Thursday’s game against the Dallas Cowboys.”

Because if the Seahawks lose their fourth game in the last five weeks and find themselves slipping out of a wild card race that they seemed to be dominating a short time ago, Pete Carroll should have no choice but to Lock Geno out of the house. If Pete isn’t willing to do that, then he’s going to find himself as the next one sitting on the block.

I feel I’ve straddled the fence a little bit too often lately on whether or not the Seahawks should bench Geno Smith—at certain times I think he needs to sit right now and then at others I wonder if he’s the best possible option for 2024—and there are a few reasons for that wavering.

A) Seattle’s offensive problems DO run deeper than Geno and I don’t want to make it sound as though I think the starting Drew Lock is a magic spell of solutions, because I don’t believe that, B) Flat out saying “bench the QB” opens a can of worms that should only be unleashed once, and C) Quarterback play has been worse across the board in the NFL this season and it sometimes makes me question if the focus on Geno is an overreaction.

I am willing to admit that at times I can have a more negative reaction to a Geno Smith game in the immediate afterglow than I would with added hindsight and context. So then I start questioning if I’ve been wrong about Geno the whole time, but in actuality I would say that Seaside Joe has a consistent record on Geno Smith and now I am finally ready to take a stand and make the leap:

If the Seahawks lose big to the Cowboys on Thursday and Geno Smith doesn’t play well—which is probably a given if Seattle loses big—then it’s time. It’s really, REALLY time. It was already time before, but now it’s Time-Time.

It will be time to find out what the Seahawks have in Drew Lock.

No more fence-sitting, no more dancing around it, no more avoiding the tough questions and reactions that usually come with making one of the two most controversial decisions in football, one being to fire the head coach and the other being to bench the starting quarterback: Geno has four quarters, maybe less, to prove why he should be Seattle’s starting quarterback. Don’t take is as a sign of disrespect, Geno.

In fact…I respect you so much that I want to give you one last chance to compete to stay.

Here are my reasons for why I think Geno Smith should and probably will be benched if he and the Seahawks offense struggles Thursday in Dallas, arguably the toughest away game environment in the NFL right now.

Taking a stance on Geno Smith’s future to the bench is not easy and will come with some blow back, so if you like Seahawks writers who are willing to go out on a limb for fans then please consider supporting Seaside Joe today by becoming a Regular Joes member. It’s only $5 per month or $55 for an entire year! You not only get to support an extremely daily Seahawks newsletter, you will get access to over 100 bonus articles per year, such as Sunday’s bonus about 4 things I’ve learned about the Seahawks in the last 4 weeks.

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This is where I’ve always felt we’d end up

Though I just said that my opinion on where Geno ranks league-wide can vary from week to week lately, I also want to be clear that my stance on him as a starting quarterback has been really consistent for the entire year. He’s basically had the same positives and negatives throughout his Seahawks career, only the results would vary and those were largely predicated on if he had a good luck day or a bad luck day.

Over a long enough timeline, bad luck always catches up to good luck.

At the end of the 2022 season, I noted that while Geno’s “comeback season” was admirable, fans should not forget how bad the offense was for basically the entire second half of the schedule. And that because of Geno’s regression, the Seahawks should not and would not be aggressive in re-signing him as a free agent, including the fact that they wouldn’t give him the franchise tag.

Going into the offseason I remember cautioning fans something along the lines of, “Hey, it happens every year: The further we get from the actual season, the fewer details we remember. Therefore Geno’s 2022 will simply be categorized as Pro Bowler, Comeback Player of the Year, and playoffs.”

And not so much as: 12 turnovers in his last nine games, Seahawks couldn’t beat anyone with their starting quarterback after Week 9, all the problems we were concerned about at the start of the 2022 season were evident by the end.

For many, re-signing Geno Smith had to be Seattle’s top priority and “pay him whatever he wants”.

For me, I didn’t care if the Seahawks brought back Geno. If they did it, fine. If they let him go, also completely fine. The fact that they did it for less than the tag, a low 2023 salary cap hit, and no commitment past this season? Amazing!

I was surprised that Seattle re-signed Geno prior to free agency but only because I didn’t anticipate that him and his agent Chafie Fields would accept a low-ball offer. Maybe it was not a low-ball though. Maybe Fields had been able to gauge his market prior to free agency and knew that his client would potentially hurt his value by revealing to the world that he wasn’t a priority over the likes of Jimmy Garoppolo and Derek Carr, both of whom signed bigger and better deals.

Smith’s “bargain contract”—essentially a one-year deal worth less than the tag that made him too affordable to turn down—may have simply been a product of the fact that the Seahawks were his only suitor. Perhaps the Buccaneers would have been interested given that they hired Seattle’s quarterbacks coach to be their offensive coordinator (Dave Canales, who is already hearing his name mentioned in head coach interview rumors), but Tampa’s salary cap constraints forced them to sign Baker Mayfield for only $4 million.

As it turns out, Mayfield is a better bargain.

At the end of the Lions game in Week 2, I was probably the only Seahawks writer on the planet who wrote “We need to talk about Geno Smith” and said that we couldn’t let the fact that Seattle won in overtime cloud our judgment of the performance as a whole.

The problem for me is that he was not dominant. He wasn’t even good. And the stats do lie.

With more time to consider, I even noted that Geno was better than I gave him credit for in the immediate aftermath, but the games have gotten progressively worse since then. And I was still the only writer putting it out there that maybe Geno would not rebound from his slump at the end of 2022.

A week later, the Seahawks let a home game against the Panthers (currently worst record in the NFL, fired head coach Frank Reich on Monday) stay close in the fourth quarter and the writing was on the wall that Seattle would be one of the worst red zone teams in the league this season. Geno threw an interception in the first half and didn’t score a touchdown until four minutes left in the game.

Then Geno struggled over the next two weeks against the Giants and Bengals, the latter coming after a bye week. After throwing two interceptions and stalling in the red zone in a 17-13 loss to Cincinnati, I wrote that it was time for Pete to admit where this train was headed:

Geno Smith will be benched.

Not today. Not next week. Knowing Pete Carroll, the benching of Geno Smith could take far too long and might come in the form of a 2024 offseason change…because according to everything that Pete has said about Geno, “He can do everything we need him to do”.

No, he can’t. And while we could make a ton of excuses about why Seattle’s offense was so bad against the Bengals TODAY, this is NOT ABOUT ONE GAME. This is as far as Geno will ever go with the Seahawks and we know that because he’s been the same quarterback for 26 starts.

It’s just. Not. Good. Enough.

Writing that Geno Smith will eventually be benched or released caught significant blowback with a lot of people who end up seeing my article, and it was the second-most read Seaside Joe newsletter of October behind a post about the Leonard Williams trade.

There were plenty of people trying to drag me on Twitter for suggesting that Geno’s job shouldn’t be safe, and I saw both articles on prominent Seahawks websites and YouTube channels noting that anyone who agreed with me must be “casual” and “not a real fan”.

And I didn’t even say that Geno Smith would be or should be benched that week. I only wrote that it was an inevitability and predicted that those same people dragging me would eventually agree with me. Not like, “me” me, because I know most Seahawks fans do not know Seaside Joe exists, but just in the general sense that Seattle’s Geno offense had peaked and there was a reckoning on the horizon.

That was only six weeks ago and now I don’t think you’ll find many Seahawks fans who have the energy to build a defense for Geno like they did after he threw no touchdowns and two picks in a 13-point performance against the Bengals.

The Seahawks ended up beating the Cardinals (woo hoo) and Browns (with P.J. Walker at QB) in the following two games, but have lost three of four and been blown out by two legitimate Super Bowl contenders, something Seattle hasn’t been since 2015. By getting swept by the Rams, a team that is now only one game back of stealing second in the division and a wild card berth from the Seahawks, Pete Carroll has to consider what I said he would consider weeks ago.

On November 5th, I wrote that the Seahawks would bench Geno Smith if they were slipping out of playoff contention. It took less than a month for that to happen.

Now it’s time for the Seattle Seahawks to consider exercising the one element of Geno’s contract that made him so re-signable to begin with: The ability to walk away from his contract without any financial consequences.

Geno Smith is not “regressing lately”; he’s been Derek Carr for a whole year

A couple of days after I wrote that the Seahawks were on a path to bench/demote/release Geno, I added that Seattle’s fanbase would soon be split like Raiders fans who argued about Derek Carr for several years. And that the last thing I ever wanted the Seahawks quarterback position to become was a “Derek Carr debate”.

Not only did Geno sign a very Carr-like contract this past offseason, one that gave us clues that Seattle wasn’t as confident in Geno as the bandwagon media appeared to be, but he’s also sort of played exactly like him for much longer than the last few games.

I’ve heard this a lot lately: “Oh man, Geno is regressing LATELY.”

“Lately”? Really? “Lately”? Are we watching the same games?

In his first 13 starts as the Seahawks replacement for Russell Wilson, Geno threw 25 touchdown passes (1.92/game) and they scored at least 23 points on nine occasions.

In his most recent 16 starts, including playoffs, Geno has thrown 19 touchdowns (1.18 per game) and the team scored 23 points on six occasions. Of those six games, we have games like Week 4 against the Giants, when the offense only scored 17. Geno had 3 touchdowns in three of his first 13 games, but hasn’t had one of those in any of his last 16.

Geno Smith’s last 16 regular season games:

350/541, 65%, 3,697 yards, 20 TD, 13 INT, 42 sacks, 6.8 Y/A, 86.8 passer rating, 5 F, 2 FL, 209 rushing yards

Derek Carr’s 2022 season (15 games):

305/502, 61%, 3,522 yards, 24 TD, 14 INT, 27 sacks, 7.0 Y/A, 86.3 passer rating, 4 F, 0 FL, 102 rushing yards

Two important notes about Carr’s final season with the Raiders: He was a Pro Bowler, so let’s get it out of our heads that it matters. The Raiders benched him in the final two weeks of the season to avoid paying his 2023 guarantees if he gets injured.

Geno’s 2024 season would only become guaranteed if he gets injured. Why should we expect Seattle to act any differently with Geno than Las Vegas did with Carr? If the Seahawks don’t have anything to play for, they have no reason to put Geno at risk in the home stretch of the season.

If Seahawks lose, their backs are officially against the wall

It is only by a very thin margin that the Dallas Cowboys, currently the NFL leader with a point differential of +162, are not in first place in the NFC East. Yes, they trail the Eagles by two games and lost to Philly once already, but the Eagles keep winning games in the final frame and eeking out victories, including two in overtime.

Say what you want about whether the Cowboys will suffer another playoff disappointment in a couple of months, Dallas is as dominant as any team in the league right now. And as far as home teams go, there is no competition for who is doing the best at their own stadium.

The Cowboys have a +145 point differential at home, which is +38 points better than second place Miami and +54 points better than third place Baltimore. They have scored the most points at home in the NFL (205) and that is despite only playing five games there so far. Only the Saints have played 4 home games and 18 teams have played more than 5.

Dallas home game scores: 30-10, 38-3, 43-20, 49-17, 45-10.

Should the Seahawks be scared? No. Should the Seahawks be prepared? Yes. Drew Lock should be prepared. Seattle found itself down 37-3 to the Ravens and didn’t take Geno out of the game. Seattle found itself down 31-13 to the 49ers and didn’t take Geno out of the game. If the Seahawks find themselves down by 17+ points on Thursday, Pete is out of “things to lose” by taking Geno out of the game.

If the Seahawks drop to 6-6, there’s a chance that as many as three NFC teams will catch up to their record. The Rams play a Browns team down to its third (possibly fourth) QB this season. The Packers, winners of 3 of 4, host a Chiefs team that hasn’t been its dominant self. The Saints host the Lions, but finish their year with Panthers, Giants, Rams, Bucs, Falcons.

I said that Pete wouldn’t make a change at quarterback unless the playoff hopes were finished or grim. Folks, losing to the Cowboys is what grim looks like. As bad as the offense has been this season, bottom-tier in third downs, long drives, touchdowns, and red zone, it’s no longer a question of whether or not Lock is better. It’s a question of if he could be any worse.

Geno Smith should earn right to face 49ers for a 5th time

The next team the Seahawks face after Dallas is the San Francisco 49ers and I don’t want to see Geno Smith play that team again unless he earns it. In four games against the 49ers, Geno is 0-4 with 3 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, 2 fumbles, and 14 sacks. Context: 2 of his 3 touchdowns (10-yard pass to Noah Fant with 3:35 left in Week 2 of 2022 and Seattle already down by 15 points; 3-yard pass to DK Metcalf with 1:48 left in the wild card and Seattle down 24) essentially came in garbage time.

You can pretty much guarantee that a Geno-led offense against the 49ers isn’t going anywhere. On Thursday, the Seahawks offense scored 6 points against San Francisco and half of those were gifted by Dee Eskridge’s 66-yard kickoff return. Of Seattle’s first five drives, the longest went for 10 yards and ended in an interception.

I’m okay with Geno Smith starting against the 49ers in Week 14…if he earns it. I respect how hard he fought to get his opportunity last season and to be re-signed for this season, but at some point the Seahawks had to come to the conclusion that what we saw is what we’re getting. We’ve seen four bad games by the offense against the 49ers and while Lock may not fix that, Pete has to agree that what Seattle’s been trying to do is broken.

Pete’s latest comments imply that the door’s been cracked open and while he wouldn’t outright say that Geno Smith is a target for eviction, it’s clear that certain people are on notice. Sometimes we say what we mean, sometimes we say what we feel will help us avoid getting blood on our hands. Thursday’s actions against the Cowboys will speak louder than words.