Geno Smith could sit out the whole year and still be a bargain quarterback

Based on how "top tier" quarterbacks are being paid, Geno's deal is John Schneider's "Pulp Fiction": Seaside Joe 1610

Perhaps the best news about Geno Smith at Seattle Seahawks training camp this year compared to 2022 is that there is no news about Geno Smith at Seahawks training camp. A year ago, every practice rep was meticulously examined for clues that could lead media, fans, or even head coach Pete Carroll to decide if Geno was or wasn’t ready to lead the team into the season. Or if it should be Drew Lock.

Though few stories from the first week of NFL training camp are ever particularly useful—players don’t put on pads until next week and no matter how many new safety rules the league implements, hitting will always be a vitally important part of football—there haven’t been any reports about Geno.

Which, as compared to the opposite being the case at San Francisco 49ers training camp, is the best Seahawks fans could hope for.

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If Geno was a rookie quarterback, I would want news and daily updates of his performances each practice. If Geno was an untested veteran competing against Lock to start, we would want regular updates. But as it stands, Geno is a semi-tested veteran who isn’t being challenged for the starting role and in this case “no news” is preferable to “any news”.

Sure, there are stories about Geno. All the typical training camp mumbo jumbo about being in the best shape of his life and whatnot. But it hasn’t been a back and forth each day of, “Geno looks sharp”, “Geno looks rusty”, “Geno needs to develop chemistry with his receivers”, “Seattle should try out Lock again”, etc.

By NOT being in the news, except to say that he’s not going to do season two of Quarterback, Geno is giving me all the news I need: He’s probably sharp. He’s probably not rusty. He’s been working out with receivers during the offseason to develop chemistry. He’s so confidently ahead of Drew Lock that he’s able to say that he feels bad for Drew Lock that he isn’t a starter.

And he’s doing it all for $27.3 million.

I surprisingly can’t recall a time that I’ve asked anyone this before, but…

What do you think is Quentin Tarantino’s best movie?

It’s almost the perfect film question because a) there are only nine to choose from but they span three decades of movie history, b) most people have seen at least a few Tarantino movies, if not all of them, and c) any of them could be an acceptable answer.

I think most people have their opinion about the answer to that question.

Pulp Fiction is the one the that will always define “Quentin Tarantino style” because it’s the one that made him famous. Reservoir Dogs is the one that got Pulp Fiction made, and was so good that Bruce Willis had to beg this practically unknown director to cast him in it (he wanted to be Vincent and Tarantino had to turn down one of Hollywood’s most A-list actors…twice…before casting him as Butch).

Inglorious Basterds was his second nomination for Best Director and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was his third, while Django Unchained was his second Oscar win for Best Screenplay. Then you’ve got what most people would probably say is his “most underrated” movie with Jackie Brown and his “cult classic” entry with Death Proof. And if you were the right age at the right time, Kill Bill vol. 1/vol. 2 could be the one you’ve seen the most.

Really the only one that I think doesn’t swing for anybody and gets forgotten is The Hateful Eight, which therefore makes it the pick for contrarians and it’s still not a bad movie so how can you argue against it with any real energy?

Then there’s some of you who have read this and thought for the last two minutes, “Man, I HATE Quentin Tarantino. Overrated hack!”

Which is a totally fine opinion to have also. I don’t tell people that they need to think things are good or bad, unless it’s Grayson McCall, who’s good. But for the three reasons listed about, Tarantino is a good modern day subject for the “best movie?” question. Let me know your answers in the comments:

I still think it’s Pulp Fiction.

John Schneider’s masterful switch from Russell Wilson to Geno Smith in 2022 and his contract extension for Geno in 2023, that could his “Pulp Fiction”.

Though I have to give them some credit and not too much blame because it was just a different era back then, it feels like the Mike Holmgren/Tim Ruskell Seahawks would have paid Wilson the contract extension that he wanted at age 34 instead of trading him for draft picks. Again, this could be era biased…I don’t think there’s a single comparison for the Wilson trade that goes back any further than Matthew Stafford being traded to the Rams in 2021.

Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady…all moved via free agency. Starting QB trades of previous eras all came along with extenuating circumstances that made them expendable, like being too old or being bad early in their careers or getting replaced by someone newer.

So Schneider had little-to-no precedent for trading a franchise quarterback who most expected to have a lot of prime years left to give and in return he not only got two firsts, two seconds, and three players…to not only get away from his current and next contracts…but he also by luck or by design managed to Wilson onto one of the worst teams in the NFL. I don’t know how many other offers Schneider was able to consider, Wilson played a huge role in his destination, but the outcome couldn’t have been much better than picking fifth and 37th* in the draft this year.

*I accidentally listed Zach Charbonnet instead of Derick Hall in that trade article the other day, my bad!

Then not only do the Seahawks manage to get the draft picks and a few nice complementary pieces on the roster, Seattle’s $40-$50 million in annual salary cap relief by not paying Wilson could go even further. Especially since Schneider’s follow-up move to a Pro Bowl/Comeback Player of the Year season by Geno Smith was to convince Geno not to test the free agent market and to avoid the franchise tag by signing a deal that makes him probably an even better bargain than he was in 2022.

Last season, Geno played for somewhere between $3.5-$7 million (there’s been a little refutal on the sum, as Geno’s first contract last year was rejected by the NFL and they told Seattle to go back to the table) and now he’s got a $27.3 million guarantee and a 2023 cap hit of $10.1 million.

Geno Smith could sit out the entire season and I would still call it one of the best quarterback contracts in the NFL.

We know that Geno isn’t going to sit out, but let’s say that the worst case scenario from a performance standpoint comes to fruition: Geno plays worse in the first month of the season than he did in the second half of last season and Pete Carroll decides to give Lock (who at $4 million is the eighth-highest paid presumed backup in the NFL despite not throwing a single pass in 2022) his opportunity to start.

Even under those conditions, I would say Geno is a bargain. The results weren’t ideal, but the risk was still a lot LESS than it could have been based on how other quarterbacks have been paid recently and that’s whether they are as good as Geno Smith or even if they’re thought to be a lot BETTER than Geno Smith.

If Geno fails, the sunk cost is $27.3 million with a $10.1 million cap hit in 2023 and $17 million in dead money in 2024.

But if Russ fails and repeats his performance of a year ago, it’s $17 million down the drain in 2022 (which already happened), a $22 million cap hit in 2023, a fully-guaranteed $17 million base salary in 2024, and massive dead cap hits in 2025 ($49.6) and 2026 ($31.2), followed by two more seasons of smaller hits in 2027 and 2028. His practical guarantee is almost 5x greater than Geno’s.

Geno Smith’s $27.3 million guarantee:

• Ranks 26th in the NFL, including rookie contracts which come fully-guaranteed if you’re drafted in the first round (So that means the Texans took a bigger financial risk on C.J. Stroud, the Colts took a bigger risk on Anthony Richardson, the Dolphins took a bigger risk on Tua Tagovailoa, and even Zach Wilson and Trey Lance have larger guarantees)

• If you DOUBLED his guarantee, Geno would rank 16th in the NFL and it would still be less than Jared Goff ($57), Derek Carr ($60), Ryan Tannehill ($62), and Matthew Stafford ($63).

• If you TRIPLED his guarantee, Geno would essentially be tied for ninth with DANIEL JONES ($81) and rank behind QBs such as Dak Prescott ($95), Kyler Murray ($103), Jalen Hurts ($110), and Wilson ($124).

• And finally, if you made Geno’s guarantee EIGHT TIMES LARGER, it would still be $12 million less than Deshaun Watson’s.

I’m not a fool, right? That’s the most annoying thing a writer or a fan having a conversation can do, which is to ignore context to make a point and then it assumes that the person on the other end is an idiot. You’re not an idiot, and I’m not going to ignore the context.

From 2017-2020, Watson was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL and even when the Texans traded DeAndre Hopkins, he was still elite.

From 2015-2021, Geno Smith made five starts!

I would still say that a $230 million guarantee for Watson at the time that the Browns traded THREE first round picks (and more) for him is by far a much greater risk than the $27.3 million guarantee that Seattle got away with after one season of evaluation as the starter. More than eight times greater of a risk.

Then from a salary cap hit point of view, Geno’s $10.1 million in 2023 (which is almost one-third what they would have had to pay on a franchise tag) is nearly one-fourth what the Chiefs are allocating to Patrick Mahomes for the highset hit in the NFL, less than one-third of Tannehill’s ($36.6), one-third of Goff’s ($31), and less than half of Dak Prescott, Jimmy Garoppolo, Lamar Jackson, Russell Wilson, and Kirk Cousins.

If Geno plays well enough to keep the job in 2024, his $31.2 million salary cap hit will be 12th (barring changes in front of him), which is less than similar free agents Derek Carr ($35.7) and Daniel Jones ($45), and a lot less than “how’d get THAT?” Dak Prescott ($59.4).

The worst case scenario for Geno Smith…

Is still much better to me than the worst case scenario for at least 20 other quarterbacks in the NFL. I bring this topic up today because in this same calendar year, we’ve seen Justin Herbert set the market for the third time already ($262.5 million, $52.5 million per year), following Lamar Jackson ($260m, $52m) and Jalen Hurts ($255m, $51m), and that’s only before Joe Burrow comes in at $53 million per year in the near future.

That’s why this morning’s cup of Seaside Joe serves a reminder Geno Smith is a rare quarterback bargain who was worth the relatively small amount of risk it took for John Schneider to keep him, no matter what news comes next.

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