Seahawks continue the "QBs we didn't want" tour with Marcus Mariota in Week 3
Seaside Joe 1295: Seattle's first 5 games are all against QBs who they passed on this year
When the Seattle Seahawks traded Russell Wilson on March 8, 2022, they only had one notable quarterback on the roster by the end of the day: Drew Lock. At that point, Geno Smith was not only set to be a free agent, he also seemed like the furthest thing from Seattle’s Week 1 starter.
It would be over a month until the Seahawks re-signed Smith, and only after a long period of no other franchise kicking the tires on the veteran with three starts in 2021.
In that time, I made several immediate and clear declarations of how the Seahawks should and probably would address the quarterback position for 2022:
On the day of the trade, I wrote: Do not draft a quarterback this year (friendly reminder that immediately after the trade, the internet’s consensus pick for the Seahawks at nine was Malik Willis, which I won’t let Twitter or the internet forget when the 2023 draft comes around)
The day after: Don’t “trade the farm for the next Erik Bedard”
Three days after the deal, I responded to Daniel Jeremiah’s report that the Seahawks were going to trade for Deshaun Watson by writing “No they won’t.”
The day after that, I evaluated all of the potential trade options, giving Nick Foles and Jared Goff the highest probability of being dealt to Seattle, with extremely low scores for Baker Mayfield, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Watson.
Then I evaluated the free agent options, which 99% of the time is always going to be an underwhelming and sad route to fix the quarterback position. To my discredit, I gave the idea of re-signing Geno Smith a 1-out-of-5.
I severely underestimated Pete Carroll’s willingness to replay Geno’s three starts in 2021. As well as Seattle’s insistence that Lock was not merely a throw-in to the trade, but Smith’s only remaining hurdle between re-signing and becoming a Week 1 starter for the first time in eight years.
Along the way of choosing to not retain Russell Wilson, the Seahawks also chose to not go after quite a few other quarterbacks who aren’t in Seattle but are on Seattle’s schedule:
Week 1: Broncos, Russ
Week 2: 49ers, Jimmy Garoppolo
Week 3: Falcons, Marcus Mariota (signed two-year, $18.75m contract)
Week 4: Lions, Jared Goff (not traded)
Week 5: Saints, Jameis Winston (signed two-year, $28m contract)
That’s really kind of five weeks in a row of the Seahawks playing against quarterbacks who they either traded away, didn’t trade for, or didn’t test in free agency this year to become their starter. I had Mariota and Winston on my free agency list, ranking both as “Not my first choice, but eh, I don’t care if it’s a cheap one-year deal” and Seattle instead went with a much cheaper option in Geno. That’s good!
Mariota’s contract only has $6.75 million guaranteed and the Falcons can release him next year with only $2.5 million in dead money remaining. Winston’s is much more prohibitive for New Orleans, as he got a $14 million signing bonus! Winston, in Winston fashion, had three interceptions in Week 2.
After Week 5 though, the Seahawks’ “We Didn’t Want You Tour” slows down, only sort of coming across Daniel Jones in Week 8 (and he probably wasn’t available or desirable) and Baker Mayfield in Week 14 (if the Panthers haven’t made a change by then).
I will get back to Mariota in two paragraphs, if I may borrow your attention for a half-second, I want to make a plea to consider playing QB Survivor and to that I say, “What’s the worst that could happen?” You end up developing long-lasting, deep connections with several young quarterbacks, one of whom might actually end up becoming the Seahawks’ next Russell Wilson, and for the next 20 years you make an even stronger, nuanced, and unique relationship with a handful of players who change the spot of football one day? That’s the WORST case scenario?
Good Lord, what must the BEST case scenario be then? Please consider clicking this link and getting to know what QB Survivor is all about. You have until the end of the week to vote and there are many compelling twists, turns, and surprises to come—you ain’t seen anything like this from a blog before.
Through two games, Mariota may seem like he’s playing well enough to make the Seahawks regret their decision to not top an offer that only contained a $5 million signing bonus (Geno Smith’s cap hit is only $750,000 lower, but he doesn’t have any dead money in 2023), but I will once again caution fans from overrating statistics—of which Mariota’s are still not very good anyway.
Really it’s not even about “overrating” stats as it is about how fans and the media are more aware than ever that you can make any quarterback seem good by just highlighting one or two numbers. EVERY quarterback will have SOME number that they excel in—because EVERY coach knows what EVERY quarterback CAN and CAN’T do.
“Hey, you can’t throw past 10 yards, so don’t throw past 10 yards.” What does that lead to?
It’s not as though all 32 starting quarterbacks are given the same assignments, the same playbooks, or playing the same defenses each week. Last Sunday, Charles Cross was facing Nick Bosa. This Sunday, he’s facing Arnold Ebiketie.
Each game has a different level of difficulty, so expect different results.
In Week 1, Mariota went 20-of-33 for 215 yards against the Saints, throwing no touchdowns and fumbling twice, but also no interceptions, taking no sacks, and rushing for 72 yards and a touchdown. In Week 2, Mariota went 17-of-26 for 196 yards against the L.A. Rams, throwing two touchdowns.
But he also fumbled again (he’s lost two of three fumbles now), was sacked two times, threw two interceptions, and only rushed for 16 yards.
And if it’s not stats that they cherry pick, then it will be highlights. Hey, this play by Marcus Mariota is very cool and I’m happy to watch it. However, it’s also not repeatable, not useful, and is only “cool” because the quarterback lost his feet and made a mistake to increase the level of difficult by tenfold:
So far, Mariota is now 7-of-13 with two interceptions on third downs. He has played atrociously in the first halves of games (20-of-34, no touchdowns, one interception, 5.4 adjusted Y/A), and if you get any pressure on him, he’s crumbled: 19-of-33, one touchdown, two interceptions, 51.2 passer rating when under 2.5 seconds in the pocket.
If you want to make Mariota seem good, just focus on what good stats remain and pretend like the Falcons “are almost 2-0 because of him.” Are they? Or are the Falcons 0-2 because they don’t have a quarterback who can elevate them to winning these games? This statement might be the theme of Seaside Joe all season long: It’s not always about the plays that a quarterback has on film, it’s also about the plays that will never show up on film.
If you don’t have the ability to execute or even attempt those explosive, game-changing passing plays, you will never keep up with the teams that can and do.
Statistics have really mucked up the path towards understanding good and bad football. There’s a lot of bad football being played, yet if you just read about the good, you wouldn’t know it. You would think that there are over 32 “good” starting quarterbacks, which is a known as a paradox.
There can’t be good without bad. The Seahawks clearly knew that “bad” was their most realistic outcome at quarterback in 2022 no matter what they attempted to do to fix it, so they avoided Mariota and Winston, going instead with two options that were cheaper and already in Seattle.
This Sunday, it’s a battle between the Seahawks attempting to prove themselves right and Marcus Mariota’s will to try and prove Seattle wrong.
I will admit my choice was Marcus Mariota, when he became unavailable I was not disappointed. His plus was he had played a lot of football and he had taken a team to the playoffs. It was not he will turn us into NFC West Champs. Also keeping track of fumbles is a good thing. If you throw a pick a lot of times you will have advanced the ball. If you fumble set to pass your turning it over and losing the ball and field position.
Odd that Seattle didn't try any long passes against SF. Not odd in theory if the game is close. Just as in war battle plans must change. At some point the Niners defense would have been jumping every pass. This did answer my question, Pete is involved in the offensive concept. This is unfair to Shane Waldron. Like I said in a close game and Geno's short passing expertise good idea, but you have to flow with the game. The Niners have proven they can win with average quarterback play because their defensive line is deep and talented. Seattle won a Super Bowl with same type defense and a above average quarterback who became great.
If the Seahawks knew all the choices at QB were bad and they settled on Geno and Lock, then why not take a good look at Lock this season to see what they have?
It's maddening to see Geno being pushed out there each week.