“They got Byron Murphy in the draft in part because certain quarterbacks were overrated in that class.”
I was just thinking about this other day. I had to look it up to make sure it actually happened.
2nd defensive player taken at 16. Still can’t believe it happened.
This was also a pick I loved because we had just traded for and signed Leo Williams, and we said this guy is just too good to pass up and we want to build a strength on this team.
2 years later the D Line was a huge reason for the SB.
And the Seahawks have benefited greatly from this idea perpetuated by the media based on the very few outlier truly elite QBs.
I’ll step out on a limb and make a statement that will probably trigger emotional responses (which could be part of the reason most people don’t want to step outside the box):
There was no difference in QB play between the Raiders and the Seahawks this year during the season.
Geno Smith is still a good QB. Sam Darnold is still “just” a good QB.
Set aside the NFC championship game.
But Geno and Sam are identical. They have the same strengths and weaknesses in terms of tangible traits.
Which is to say, that we save $17M dollars between Sam and Purdy/Goff/Hurts etc. and we are younger.
This was not some huge move that some people want to make it out to be,
It was logical and it was business. We offered Geno, he didn’t accept, we saw a QB rated similarly, so we pivoted.
I see no villains just simple decisions by all parties involved.
It’s also funny still kind of following the raiders that they have no clue what they are doing.
They should capitalize on the QB markets, like the Seahawks have done, and trade the first pick.
The Geno hate to the Mendoza pick is another example of media group think this article is talking about.
It is easier to sell or comprehend that “Geno sucks” and Mendoza will save them than it is to face reality and take the long road to draft best player available, make frugal FA pickups, and be patient.
It’s funny, but the NFL just never changes. Same thing different year.
And I don’t see it stopping anytime soon.
Where is the analysis into what the Seahawks did? And why won’t teams follow? Too hard is my guess
A week before the Hawks got rid of Geno I wanted them to retain him. I just didn’t see an option so late to make a switch that was going to be better. But the events happened so fast. From the offer they made him that drew no counter, to the trade to the Darnold signing. Rapid fire moves. As someone who believes that JS knows what he’s doing and is always trying to improve the Hawks, it occurred to Kubiak felt Darnold was a better option. Fast forward one year and cutting Geno only saves $8.5 million, but Kubiak is fine cutting him. It speaks to what he really thinks about Geno. If these people were real “experts,” they’d learn - eventually - that JS makes moves to improve. I was forced to burn tickets to a Mina Kimes show in Capital Hill because I was sickened by her stupid assessment of a huge downgrade by the Hawks. She had the Seahawks in the bottom third of her NFL power rankings.
I also believe that no one who tries to follow 32 teams can possibly be an expert on any one of them. The model these sites use to get news and analysis to the public is wrong. You have to have a site that hires 32 individuals that focus exclusively on one team. 8 individuals that focus on each division, and other area specific people - draft - free agency league matters, etc… Otherwise you wind up with stupid takes over and over again.
We focus on our team. Plus, we have SJ's pretty damn good objectivity as an additional resource.
All the pundits that SJ calls out are stuck in a problem of their own making: how to make intelligent noise about every team! They are virtually guaranteed to be dilettantes. And therefore liked and followed by other dilettantes.
SJ, maybe what we need is a list of (up to) 32 writers - one for each team - that you consider to be your true peers. That might save us valuable time!
I was not and am not either a Geno lover or a Geno hater. I can also remember the Ice Bowl, meaning that I have seen a lot of QBs, and did get the wailing and gnashing of teeth over moving from a guy who—when his career is done—will be about as memorable as Scott Mitchell and Steve Beuerlein.
To be honest (and maybe contrarian here in the SSJ community), I was worried when they traded Geno. I still firmly believe that he would have improved under Kubiak. My worry wasn’t that we lost an elite QB, but that we wouldn’t find any better option.
Then along comes Darnold. Would we get 14-win Darnold or melt-down Darnold? I had no idea. I read the opinions, but I was determined to keep an open mind; to stay neutral. This had an interesting impact on me…
Until the season started, I didn’t see him as a Seahawk. Yeah, I saw the photos in the uniform, but he wasn’t “one of us.” And it wasn’t because I disliked him. It was because my neutrality made him feel like a placeholder. Then came Game 1. Now he was real. Now I could start forming an opinion.
I saw lots of positives and a small number of negatives over the season, but I was never worried that he would self-destruct in big games. Why not?
Because that’s a simple-minded opinion. Real players are more nuanced.
So to me, it’s not so much that everyone agrees. (Some do hot taeks on purpose.) It’s that the narratives are so damn stupid. (Like “running backs don’t matter.” Four words of stupid.) Football narratives are like Chicken McNuggets - created for mass consumption, not nutrition or excellence.
Beware simple explanations. Don’t listen to what the talking heads say. Watch what the players do.
I know that data isn't really the point when fans get down on a player that's left. But it might be that Geno wasn't the problem, but rather that Kubiak was the solution. Geno in both the Seahawks and Raiders was one of the highest sacked QBs. Kubiak made several changes that proved very beneficial to Darnold: invested heavily in the O line - which Hawks needed for long time (brought in Zabel, Jones, kept Cross); worked to change the timing of throws to get them out quicker; changed the Run/Pass balance from 39%/61% ('24) to 47%/53% ('25) so that the QB wasn't asked to throw a ton of passes to win games. Kubiak will need to make those same changes to the Raiders to keep his new QB (Mendoza?) from getting mangled. Luckily all the changes Kubiak brought to the Hawks remain so our '26-'27 season looks bright. Now my ChatGPT has two other insights that are interesting: the worst O line in '25/'26 was Patriots but they got to the SB; and the Bears went from the worst to the best O lines in a single year. Don't know how often my ChatGPT watches NFL so the stats could be wrong. I just like redemption stories for teams and QBs. Let's make every team competitive!!! Can't wait for August.
I was concerned about how bad Sam’s two biggest games were. I believed that Sam’s best was as good as Geno. But Geno’s worst game was much better than Sam’s worst game. That was true heading into this season and the “risk”.
But having gone through the season with Sam, it completely shed any big game concerns to me.
Once the first rams game happened. EJ backed him up (as well as eveyone). Then the offense adjusted. It was clear to me that he was fine.
I miss the Madden days with all the color commentaries. Those old boys knew their Players. Now the only replays we see are the same reruns of the same 5 or 6 commercials. Seems maybe the TNF broadcasts run on my computer were a bit better with old Al Michaels. For me, geno never had the "IT" factor, surviving on Pete Carroll's good opinions. Both Malik Willis and Jaxson Dart have IT, making something happen and watching the Team respond. Seemed to me Sanders had IT, but you say otherwise and I haven't seen them play live. Just highlights. Our Run Game came alive just when Darnold needed it most and he has responded remarkably well. (Phew). Coach McVay strikes me as seeing it when it exists, as when he traded Goff for Stafford after 1 Superbowl losing appearance. Now THAT was a ballsy call...
Unfortunately, Geno failed the 3 Ps.performance, personality and price! He led the league in interceptions, he is the first and only QB in NFL history to flip of his own fans ( Seattle and Vegas) in consecutive seasons and he had the gonads to demand a trade if he wasn't given a contract befitting a top 5 QB. Geno also took more sacks than a klepto maniac Santa Claus and missed more open recievers than Mr. Magoo. I was ecstatic when he was traded and I couldn't believe JS got a 3rd round pick for him!
What made this move even better is the number of Talking Heads that are still eating crow!!!
Great points! It’s one of the many reasons I don’t pay attention to the “experts” and love getting my Seahawks news here!
The irony of quarterbacks in today’s NFL, is they get too much credit when a team wins yet people make excuses and blame the team when they lose. Fields and Geno are prime examples.
"How did we get to a point where accuracy, or even just righteousness — a confidence to share your actual beliefs — was less important than fitting in?"
I'm pretty sure this starts around 4th grade, but really gets going in middle school.
I don't think there is anyone on the planet who is more of a contrarian than myself - my default position is to disbelieve any claim unless actual evidence is provided (or I find it) and then I'll adjust my belief. Probably a lot of you would think I'm nuts for some of my beliefs - cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease, manmade global warming alarmism is unwarranted as CO2 at present atmospheric concentrations doesn't affect temperature, cancer and Alzheimer's are mainly metabolic diseases and not genetic in nature... there are a whole host of things I believe after actually looking at the available evidence that cause most people to recoil.
But when it comes to Geno for some reason I have a soft spot in my heart for him where I'd really like to see him play behind a good offensive line. I was "meh" when he was traded because I didn't think the Hawk O-line would be great (a pleasant surprise this year) but I still wonder how Geno would have done playing behind them. But I didn't want to find out at the contract price he wanted. Maybe some team with a good O-line takes a chance and are rewarded but obviously he's a no-go when the line can't block.
I hope you don't own property on the coast. I am afraid you really are burying your head in the sand on that one. Good to be sceptical in life in general though.
Owning property on the coast like Obama, Gore and a host of other well known alarmists? If they don't take it seriously then why should anyone?
I actually started out believing the claims... why would the scientists lie? But then I looked at the evidence for myself and it's seriously lacking. I also learned about noble cause corruption, peer review gatekeeping, observation bias and cognitive dissonance and everything makes sense now.
Even more maddening is that normal everyday people fall for it.
I remember when the Seahawks signed Darnold last year. My father in law and friends insisted that he was mediocre; when I told them that they were overreacting to 2 specific games that weren’t entirely his fault they were like robots going “does not compute”! Could not hear what I was saying.
They’re Lions fans so they watched him all season! But surprise surprise they all consume lots of mainstream sports media. They were so immersed in the narrative about Sam Darnold they couldn’t even believe their own eyes from earlier in the year.
I struggle with the notion that Schneider deserves unalloyed credit for letting players like Geno and DK go? Remember, he offered both of them huge bucks, as I recall, to stay. They got more than that and left, but still, you don't offer big bucks to players unless in your judgment they are worth those bucks, and yet recent history from the 2025 season shows that they were not. DK continued his inconsistent hands/poor temperment schtick for the Steelers, and Geno was awful for the Raiders. So how much of "letting each of them go" was great judgment, and how much was simply luck?
I believe that JS was correct to offer Geno $70M over two years. I also think Geno would have had a huge year for the Hawks.
I think JS was right to pivot. We do not pay out QBs $50M.
JS made a smart offer to Geno. He made a smart decision to read the tea leaves and have a plan B. And he made a logical and good decision to pivot.
I give him credit for plan A (Geno) and Plan B (Sam).
I would not assume Geno would have been “awful” for the Hawks, quite the opposite, I think he would’ve been quite good. But you don’t go over budget by $15M to do it when Sam is sitting there.
Conclusion: I give him credit.
Did he offer DK? I’m not sure about that although I’m pretty sure he had planned to
If you offer big bucks knowing that they won't accept, you save face. I think Schneider has had times where the rejection was more surprising than not, but I'd wager that is not most of the time. I think Schneider knew that Geno and DK weren't coming back, but the public narrative that he tried his best to retain them helped inflate their value in trades.
Maybe. But it's a conspiracy-theory kind of guess. No available evidence I've seen that it's true, while there is plenty of evidence of what he actually offered, unless he and private sources are just lying...
Good point. I do think that GMs make offers that they know will not be accepted, just to be able to say "we tried to keep him" to the media later. It's hard to know how much gameplay goes into some of these negotiations. Still, there's a lot of luck that goes into being an NFL GM and Schneider has been fortunate recently.
Nobody hits 100% 100% of the time, but I'm going with JS 99% of the time. He can be my GM for as long as I own the team, which is pretty much ZERO % of the time, but hey, you get what I mean.
GMs always struck me as ashoels trying really hard to impersonate Nice Guys. Schneider strikes me as a truly nice guy who has no problem shifting into A.H mode.
I'm old enough to remember when reading local and national sports reporters in newspapers were the only source of player news. I remember players being labeled "clubhouse cancers" just because they didn't want to be buddies with the reporters. I always wondered if the players could sue for slander, and if so, why we never saw it happen.
BTW, for years my fantasy sports teams were the "Clubhouse Cancers". I don't do that anymore because no one gets the reference.
“They got Byron Murphy in the draft in part because certain quarterbacks were overrated in that class.”
I was just thinking about this other day. I had to look it up to make sure it actually happened.
2nd defensive player taken at 16. Still can’t believe it happened.
This was also a pick I loved because we had just traded for and signed Leo Williams, and we said this guy is just too good to pass up and we want to build a strength on this team.
2 years later the D Line was a huge reason for the SB.
QBs are overdrafted and overrated
And the Seahawks have benefited greatly from this idea perpetuated by the media based on the very few outlier truly elite QBs.
I’ll step out on a limb and make a statement that will probably trigger emotional responses (which could be part of the reason most people don’t want to step outside the box):
There was no difference in QB play between the Raiders and the Seahawks this year during the season.
Geno Smith is still a good QB. Sam Darnold is still “just” a good QB.
Set aside the NFC championship game.
But Geno and Sam are identical. They have the same strengths and weaknesses in terms of tangible traits.
Which is to say, that we save $17M dollars between Sam and Purdy/Goff/Hurts etc. and we are younger.
This was not some huge move that some people want to make it out to be,
It was logical and it was business. We offered Geno, he didn’t accept, we saw a QB rated similarly, so we pivoted.
I see no villains just simple decisions by all parties involved.
It’s also funny still kind of following the raiders that they have no clue what they are doing.
They should capitalize on the QB markets, like the Seahawks have done, and trade the first pick.
The Geno hate to the Mendoza pick is another example of media group think this article is talking about.
It is easier to sell or comprehend that “Geno sucks” and Mendoza will save them than it is to face reality and take the long road to draft best player available, make frugal FA pickups, and be patient.
It’s funny, but the NFL just never changes. Same thing different year.
And I don’t see it stopping anytime soon.
Where is the analysis into what the Seahawks did? And why won’t teams follow? Too hard is my guess
A week before the Hawks got rid of Geno I wanted them to retain him. I just didn’t see an option so late to make a switch that was going to be better. But the events happened so fast. From the offer they made him that drew no counter, to the trade to the Darnold signing. Rapid fire moves. As someone who believes that JS knows what he’s doing and is always trying to improve the Hawks, it occurred to Kubiak felt Darnold was a better option. Fast forward one year and cutting Geno only saves $8.5 million, but Kubiak is fine cutting him. It speaks to what he really thinks about Geno. If these people were real “experts,” they’d learn - eventually - that JS makes moves to improve. I was forced to burn tickets to a Mina Kimes show in Capital Hill because I was sickened by her stupid assessment of a huge downgrade by the Hawks. She had the Seahawks in the bottom third of her NFL power rankings.
I also believe that no one who tries to follow 32 teams can possibly be an expert on any one of them. The model these sites use to get news and analysis to the public is wrong. You have to have a site that hires 32 individuals that focus exclusively on one team. 8 individuals that focus on each division, and other area specific people - draft - free agency league matters, etc… Otherwise you wind up with stupid takes over and over again.
We focus on our team. Plus, we have SJ's pretty damn good objectivity as an additional resource.
All the pundits that SJ calls out are stuck in a problem of their own making: how to make intelligent noise about every team! They are virtually guaranteed to be dilettantes. And therefore liked and followed by other dilettantes.
SJ, maybe what we need is a list of (up to) 32 writers - one for each team - that you consider to be your true peers. That might save us valuable time!
I was not and am not either a Geno lover or a Geno hater. I can also remember the Ice Bowl, meaning that I have seen a lot of QBs, and did get the wailing and gnashing of teeth over moving from a guy who—when his career is done—will be about as memorable as Scott Mitchell and Steve Beuerlein.
To be honest (and maybe contrarian here in the SSJ community), I was worried when they traded Geno. I still firmly believe that he would have improved under Kubiak. My worry wasn’t that we lost an elite QB, but that we wouldn’t find any better option.
Then along comes Darnold. Would we get 14-win Darnold or melt-down Darnold? I had no idea. I read the opinions, but I was determined to keep an open mind; to stay neutral. This had an interesting impact on me…
Until the season started, I didn’t see him as a Seahawk. Yeah, I saw the photos in the uniform, but he wasn’t “one of us.” And it wasn’t because I disliked him. It was because my neutrality made him feel like a placeholder. Then came Game 1. Now he was real. Now I could start forming an opinion.
I saw lots of positives and a small number of negatives over the season, but I was never worried that he would self-destruct in big games. Why not?
Because that’s a simple-minded opinion. Real players are more nuanced.
So to me, it’s not so much that everyone agrees. (Some do hot taeks on purpose.) It’s that the narratives are so damn stupid. (Like “running backs don’t matter.” Four words of stupid.) Football narratives are like Chicken McNuggets - created for mass consumption, not nutrition or excellence.
Beware simple explanations. Don’t listen to what the talking heads say. Watch what the players do.
I know that data isn't really the point when fans get down on a player that's left. But it might be that Geno wasn't the problem, but rather that Kubiak was the solution. Geno in both the Seahawks and Raiders was one of the highest sacked QBs. Kubiak made several changes that proved very beneficial to Darnold: invested heavily in the O line - which Hawks needed for long time (brought in Zabel, Jones, kept Cross); worked to change the timing of throws to get them out quicker; changed the Run/Pass balance from 39%/61% ('24) to 47%/53% ('25) so that the QB wasn't asked to throw a ton of passes to win games. Kubiak will need to make those same changes to the Raiders to keep his new QB (Mendoza?) from getting mangled. Luckily all the changes Kubiak brought to the Hawks remain so our '26-'27 season looks bright. Now my ChatGPT has two other insights that are interesting: the worst O line in '25/'26 was Patriots but they got to the SB; and the Bears went from the worst to the best O lines in a single year. Don't know how often my ChatGPT watches NFL so the stats could be wrong. I just like redemption stories for teams and QBs. Let's make every team competitive!!! Can't wait for August.
Nice comment. Very measured.
Similar here.
I was concerned about how bad Sam’s two biggest games were. I believed that Sam’s best was as good as Geno. But Geno’s worst game was much better than Sam’s worst game. That was true heading into this season and the “risk”.
But having gone through the season with Sam, it completely shed any big game concerns to me.
Once the first rams game happened. EJ backed him up (as well as eveyone). Then the offense adjusted. It was clear to me that he was fine.
I miss the Madden days with all the color commentaries. Those old boys knew their Players. Now the only replays we see are the same reruns of the same 5 or 6 commercials. Seems maybe the TNF broadcasts run on my computer were a bit better with old Al Michaels. For me, geno never had the "IT" factor, surviving on Pete Carroll's good opinions. Both Malik Willis and Jaxson Dart have IT, making something happen and watching the Team respond. Seemed to me Sanders had IT, but you say otherwise and I haven't seen them play live. Just highlights. Our Run Game came alive just when Darnold needed it most and he has responded remarkably well. (Phew). Coach McVay strikes me as seeing it when it exists, as when he traded Goff for Stafford after 1 Superbowl losing appearance. Now THAT was a ballsy call...
Unfortunately, Geno failed the 3 Ps.performance, personality and price! He led the league in interceptions, he is the first and only QB in NFL history to flip of his own fans ( Seattle and Vegas) in consecutive seasons and he had the gonads to demand a trade if he wasn't given a contract befitting a top 5 QB. Geno also took more sacks than a klepto maniac Santa Claus and missed more open recievers than Mr. Magoo. I was ecstatic when he was traded and I couldn't believe JS got a 3rd round pick for him!
What made this move even better is the number of Talking Heads that are still eating crow!!!
Great points! It’s one of the many reasons I don’t pay attention to the “experts” and love getting my Seahawks news here!
The irony of quarterbacks in today’s NFL, is they get too much credit when a team wins yet people make excuses and blame the team when they lose. Fields and Geno are prime examples.
After Russ, DK, and Geno, it’s a wonder there’s a market for former Hawks.
"How did we get to a point where accuracy, or even just righteousness — a confidence to share your actual beliefs — was less important than fitting in?"
I'm pretty sure this starts around 4th grade, but really gets going in middle school.
... am a school bus driver 'n i second this emotion.
I don't think there is anyone on the planet who is more of a contrarian than myself - my default position is to disbelieve any claim unless actual evidence is provided (or I find it) and then I'll adjust my belief. Probably a lot of you would think I'm nuts for some of my beliefs - cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease, manmade global warming alarmism is unwarranted as CO2 at present atmospheric concentrations doesn't affect temperature, cancer and Alzheimer's are mainly metabolic diseases and not genetic in nature... there are a whole host of things I believe after actually looking at the available evidence that cause most people to recoil.
But when it comes to Geno for some reason I have a soft spot in my heart for him where I'd really like to see him play behind a good offensive line. I was "meh" when he was traded because I didn't think the Hawk O-line would be great (a pleasant surprise this year) but I still wonder how Geno would have done playing behind them. But I didn't want to find out at the contract price he wanted. Maybe some team with a good O-line takes a chance and are rewarded but obviously he's a no-go when the line can't block.
I agree. Right player in the right scheme -- equalled a redemption story for Darnold that not a lot of Seahawks fan saw coming.
I hope you don't own property on the coast. I am afraid you really are burying your head in the sand on that one. Good to be sceptical in life in general though.
Owning property on the coast like Obama, Gore and a host of other well known alarmists? If they don't take it seriously then why should anyone?
I actually started out believing the claims... why would the scientists lie? But then I looked at the evidence for myself and it's seriously lacking. I also learned about noble cause corruption, peer review gatekeeping, observation bias and cognitive dissonance and everything makes sense now.
Even more maddening is that normal everyday people fall for it.
I remember when the Seahawks signed Darnold last year. My father in law and friends insisted that he was mediocre; when I told them that they were overreacting to 2 specific games that weren’t entirely his fault they were like robots going “does not compute”! Could not hear what I was saying.
They’re Lions fans so they watched him all season! But surprise surprise they all consume lots of mainstream sports media. They were so immersed in the narrative about Sam Darnold they couldn’t even believe their own eyes from earlier in the year.
I struggle with the notion that Schneider deserves unalloyed credit for letting players like Geno and DK go? Remember, he offered both of them huge bucks, as I recall, to stay. They got more than that and left, but still, you don't offer big bucks to players unless in your judgment they are worth those bucks, and yet recent history from the 2025 season shows that they were not. DK continued his inconsistent hands/poor temperment schtick for the Steelers, and Geno was awful for the Raiders. So how much of "letting each of them go" was great judgment, and how much was simply luck?
It’s an interesting discussion.
I believe that JS was correct to offer Geno $70M over two years. I also think Geno would have had a huge year for the Hawks.
I think JS was right to pivot. We do not pay out QBs $50M.
JS made a smart offer to Geno. He made a smart decision to read the tea leaves and have a plan B. And he made a logical and good decision to pivot.
I give him credit for plan A (Geno) and Plan B (Sam).
I would not assume Geno would have been “awful” for the Hawks, quite the opposite, I think he would’ve been quite good. But you don’t go over budget by $15M to do it when Sam is sitting there.
Conclusion: I give him credit.
Did he offer DK? I’m not sure about that although I’m pretty sure he had planned to
If you offer big bucks knowing that they won't accept, you save face. I think Schneider has had times where the rejection was more surprising than not, but I'd wager that is not most of the time. I think Schneider knew that Geno and DK weren't coming back, but the public narrative that he tried his best to retain them helped inflate their value in trades.
Maybe. But it's a conspiracy-theory kind of guess. No available evidence I've seen that it's true, while there is plenty of evidence of what he actually offered, unless he and private sources are just lying...
Good point. I do think that GMs make offers that they know will not be accepted, just to be able to say "we tried to keep him" to the media later. It's hard to know how much gameplay goes into some of these negotiations. Still, there's a lot of luck that goes into being an NFL GM and Schneider has been fortunate recently.
Nobody hits 100% 100% of the time, but I'm going with JS 99% of the time. He can be my GM for as long as I own the team, which is pretty much ZERO % of the time, but hey, you get what I mean.
GMs always struck me as ashoels trying really hard to impersonate Nice Guys. Schneider strikes me as a truly nice guy who has no problem shifting into A.H mode.
I'm old enough to remember when reading local and national sports reporters in newspapers were the only source of player news. I remember players being labeled "clubhouse cancers" just because they didn't want to be buddies with the reporters. I always wondered if the players could sue for slander, and if so, why we never saw it happen.
BTW, for years my fantasy sports teams were the "Clubhouse Cancers". I don't do that anymore because no one gets the reference.
Well us here at the Seaside will keep watching those salmon swim upstream!
I liked Geno a lot but it was time to let him go.
May the 12s be with you.