Seattle Seahawks gave Geno Smith way too much to re-sign

The Seattle Seahawks reportedly re-signed Geno Smith on Thursday but in doing so gave him a massive raise to simply possibly backup again in 2022.

Geno Smith was a backup in 2021, too, of course. But he has been a backup in the NFL for years now. What’s weird is that while he has a chance to be the starter this coming year, from everything we have been told by Pete Carroll Drew Lock is expected to be the starter.

So why did Seattle give Smith $7 million to come back in 2022 (base value appears to be $4 million)? In 2021, Smith made $1,212,500 to be a backup to Russell Wilson. For the first time in forever, Wilson actually missed games and Smith started three times in 2021.

Smith wasn’t bad, really. In four games last year, Smith threw 5 touchdowns against just one interception and completed 68.4 percent of his passes. His quarterback rating was 103. That’s solid.

Geno Smith r-signs with Seahawks to potentially start some games in 2022

But Smith shouldn’t be expected to start in 2022, based on what Carroll said. Smith hasn’t made any more than $2.43 million in a season since his rookie year of 2013. He reportedly just signed a one-year deal worth more than $4.5 million than he has ever made before. That seems silly.

First, the Seahawks signing Smith to such a deal makes it seem like Seattle needed Smith more than Smith needed Seattle. The Seahawks could have gone into the season with Drew Lock and Jacob Eason. That isn’t great but there is no proof they will be better having paid Smith up to $7 million to be on the roster.

Secondly, though, that Seattle has Lock under contract for just a year and the same for Smith might imply the Seahawks really do plan on drafting a quarterback high in the 2022 draft. Seattle might be seeing Smith and Lock as one-year bridges who might give Seattle a decent chance of winning games but if they don’t there is no long-term investment.

Lastly, however, for Seattle to have a relative lot of cap space to begin this offseason, not spend it on any true impact players but to give Will Dissly $24 million for three years and Smith possibly $7 million for one seems like maybe John Schneider and Carroll didn’t have a good plan of what to do this offseason.