Will we finally be right about the Seahawks QB this year?

Geno Smith has never been what he's expected to be, so how can we expect him to be anything in 2024? Seaside Joe 1895

The way this writer-reader relationship typically works is: Seahawks exist → Seaside Joe considers what’s presently interesting about that existence → Reader reads latest post and decides for themself if SJ (or SSJ to some of you) is correct or not in said determination of “interestingness”. We are three elements combining to form an important relationship that will help us get through 24 more hours of life with “mild-to-extreme entertainment” value to distract ourselves from the inevitable abyss of the afterlife:

Subject+Writer+Reader

Without any one of these elements, the relationship erodes. The reader can follow the subject without the writer and the writer can follow or even writer about the subject without the reader, but the subject—The Seattle Seahawks in this case—needs both other elements to exist.

The Seahawks need fans and they need some form of media to promote the product to the fans.

(I know, football could technically exist without media…in which case, the highest paid player would be making about $53k per year.)

But truthfully, I do need you more than you need me. There are plenty of other options available covering the Seahawks on a regular basis, many of them are doing a good job, so it’s up to Seaside Joe to continously reach the bar of “interesting” everyday or Seaside Joe risks losing your attention and this is an attention business after all.

In addition to needing your prying eyes (I don’t know why they’re prying, but a prying eye is far more interesting than an eye that is afixed on something it is allowed to see), it is also beneficial to the writer to get feedback and comments from the readers and Seaside Joe’s community remains unchallenged as the best on the Internet….if “interesting” doesn’t get me everywhere, hopefully flattery does.

As someone who does cover the Seahawks 365.25 days per year, never is there a time where the degree of difficulty to be “interesting” than the period between the draft and training camp. But I have worked as an NFL writer every summer since 2012, so with that experience comes the knowledge of where to find and create stories during the dull months. One such story, today’s story, has the READERS, the SEASIDE JOE COMMUNITY, to thank for the idea.

In the comments section of a post earlier this week on “How good are the Seahawks?”, Hawkman54 made the point that if the Seahawks follow through on improvements to the defense and offensive line, even slight ones, that Seattle could win 10 games in 2024 since they did go 9-8 in 2023.

This was the catalyst for me to think about whether or not the Seahawks would definitely be better next season if they improved on defense (a team can improve and still lose more games than the previous season), as well as what other aspects to the sport could hurt Seattle’s chances of the playoffs even if the team does show vast improvement on defense and offensive line.

Namely, “What about the most important position of all?”

No, we aren’t going to bicker over Geno Smith

There’s no point in trying to convince another fan that their opinions about a quarterback are in some way inaccurate, as that is virtually impossible to do. You feel how you feel, I feel how I feel, and never was the purpose of Seaside Joe intended to be changing how you feel. Besides, no matter how you feel and I feel, I am certain our opinions are closer to being the same than we think.

This isn’t a debate newsletter, it’s most often a presentation of information. And what the past says about Geno Smith is that despite being drafted 11 years ago, we don’t have a huge body of work to base our predictions on as far as what could happen in 2024.

I could argue that Geno did more bad than good last season, and some could say that continued a pattern of regression that began at the end of the previous season.

A fair retort could be that if he was on a team that didn’t allow so many rushing yards and points that Geno Smith has proven beyond a doubt that he can hang with the NFL’s second and third tier starters, like for example Kirk Cousins, Derek Carr, and Dak Prescott.

Both are solid arguments…if not held up to the scrutiny of a POOR TRACK RECORD FOR PREDICTING how the Seahawks quarterback will perform NEXT season.

I say “A”, you say “B”, time and time again the Seahawks have given us something akin to a number or maybe an ampersand. They don’t even do the alphabet!

Lucky for me, I have readers who will look at my work, question it, ask me “Are you sure about that?”, and these checks and balances hopefully prepare us to be as unprepared as possible for what’s to come in 2024.

The Bad Track Record of QB Predictions

2020: Russell Wilson (Let Russ Cook)

Has there ever been another quarterback in history who was coming off of an All-Pro season (second team), was 12th in passing attempts, had over 4,000 yards (fourth most in franchise history), 31 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, and there were fans saying, “Damn, the head coach treats his quarterback like SHIT!”?

A lot of fans on Twitter said this. So many fans that Pete Carroll all but responded to the criticism by allowing Wilson to “cook” in the first half of the 2020 season and at first it seemed to be perfection. In the first seven games, Seattle scored a ton of points and Wilson had 26 touchdowns and 2,151 yards (that would be a pace of 63 touchdowns and 5,224 yards), but then the kitchen closed.

We couldn’t even predict how a Seahawks quarterback would do that year AFTER we were given a seven-game sample size.

2021: Russell Wilson (Let Russ Live)

With Shane Waldron replacing Brian Schottenheimer (due to the “success” of Twitter’s offensive play calling), there was a lot of optimism that the Seahawks would be able to be as efficient as Sean McVay’s Rams have been; 2021 felt like it was going to be Wilson’s opportunity to kind of separate from Pete, due to Carroll’s willingness to adjust the offense to Wilson’s preference given that the Seahawks hadn’t won many playoff games recently.

In the first four games, Wilson had nine touchdowns and no interceptions, but a thumb injury against the Rams in Week 5 ended up throwing the entire franchise into chaos.

Wilson admits that he rushed back too soon and though he ultimately reset back to the quarterback we were accustomed to, I don’t think anybody predicted before 2021 that it would end up being the nail in his coffee.

2022: Geno Smith (I did not return your letters, sir)

People thought Geno Smith sucked. Now they think he’s okay. I did write before 2022 that Geno or Drew Lock could probably be serviceable starters, and I pretty much stand by that now. But nothing in my bones said that Geno Smith would be the starter in 2023, let alone 2024. Geno, who set the franchise record for passing yards and completion percentage in 2022, has proven to be even more unpredictable than Wilson’s final few campaigns.

We could add a bonus “We don’t know anything” note here by mentioning how poorly Wilson’s career went with the Denver Broncos relative to expectations.

2023: Geno Smith (Return to sender)

Last June, I wrote that if all else went right then maybe Geno Smith could be as good or better than Matt Ryan. I was right about the player, wrong about the season.

I said Geno might be able to be as good as 2016 Matt Ryan. Instead he was more like Colts’ Matt Ryan.

2024: ???

I don’t know!

Geno Smith’s umpteenth prove-it season

I once heard an actor say on a podcast that the worst part about the industry is that he basically has to go to 3-5 job interviews every single week for the rest of his career. Even many famous, well-established actors must continously prove themselves for decades.

That feels like how the rest of Geno’s career will probably go, constantly fighting for permanent validation that will actually never come.

Which is fine…how many active quarterbacks can say that they don’t have to prove themselves this year? Russell Wilson is having to prove himself and he might actually have worse odds than Geno of being a starter in 2025.

But how Geno plays next season, his first with offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and the entire offensive coaching staff, his first with Mike Macdonald, isn’t going to be up for anyone to decide until it happens. Not just one game or seven games, but the entire season. If the defense shows 30% improvement and Geno plays like he did for most of 2022, that should in theory help the Seahawks compete for a playoff berth. If the defense shows 30% improvement but Geno doesn’t rebound from last season, he might not even get the opportunity to finish the year as Seattle’s starter.

It is up to Geno to decide what he needs to work on in order to be better next year and it is the RELATIONSHIPS (QB → Supporting Cast, Offensive Personnel → Offensive Coaching Staff, Seahawks vs. Everybody) that will ultimately determine how successful the team is in 2024. Success is always about the relationships…

Thank you for writing.