One of the most surprising moves of the offseason was the Seattle Seahawks trading their starting quarterback, Geno Smith. The least-surprising aspect of that trade, though, may have been Smith’s destination: Las Vegas. His former coach with Seattle, Pete Carroll, is now the head man for the Raiders.
It was also no surprise that in the quarterback’s press conference, Carroll was effusive in his praise of Smith.
“He’s going to bring us great stability and belief in the kinds of things that we stand for,” Carroll said, via Pro Football Talk. “His habits are so, so stellar. The way he works, the way he looks at the game, the way he looks at the challenges of it all is exactly in line with the way we think. … I think it gives us instant stability in a crucial spot. The history that we have and my understanding of G, and how to help him be the best he can be, and he knows how to bring out the best in our system because he’ll stand for the competitiveness and the things that we believe in.”
Carroll’s right that Smith will bring stability to the position, which is a wild thing to say given where Smith was in his career just a few years ago — before he and Carroll united in Seattle.
In his three seasons as the Seahawks’ starter, Smith consistently completed around 70% of his passes and averaged 7.4 yards per attempt. He threw 71 touchdown passes against 35 interceptions and tied Kirk Cousins for 18th out of 36 qualifiers in EPA per dropback, via TruMedia.
Smith has some extremely high-end traits, like his accuracy: he had the lowest off-target throw rate of anyone at the position from 2022 through 2024. But he also has some lower-end traits, like his willingness to put the ball up for grabs: he ranked 33rd in turnover-worthy throw rate during that same time.
Put it all together and he was, essentially, a league-average or slightly better starter during most of his time with the Seahawks. And that’s far better than anything the Raiders have gotten from the quarterback position in recent years. It’s no wonder they were willing to trade for him and give him a new contract, given both their situation and his strong relationship with their new head coach.
