Geno Smith ahead of Drew Lock in Seahawks QB battle. That is OK.

Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron said this week that at this point in time, Geno Smith leads the starting QB battle. That’s as it should be.

Smith could end up outplaying Drew Lock in training camp and preseason and earn the starting gig for Seattle this coming season. But if Drew Lock were already ahead of Geno Smith right now, what would that say about Smith?

Lock is new to the team and new to the offense. Heck, one could argue Lock is even new to modern football after playing the last three seasons in Denver where the offensive coaching staff was so inept even the Wing-T would have seemed revolutionary.

Geno Smith ahead of Drew Lock for Seahawks QB battle

Smith needs to be ahead of Lock because Smith knows the Seahawks offense better after playing under Waldron for a year. If he wasn’t, things would not portend well for Seattle in 2022 no matter who the quarterback is.

First of all, what does it tell Smith if he weren’t hearing he was ahead of Lock. “Yeah, Geno. We get it. You started three games for us in 2021 but you were so bad that even knowing the offense better than this newbie we think he should start.”

Gut punch to the confidence there.

But what does it tell Lock as well? “Drew, look. You don’t know the offense at all but we are making you the starter just to help with your confidence.” Then Lock starts to play live-action and stinks and he is yanked for Smith. Lock already struggles (reportedly) with confidence issues so giving him the job and then taking it from him would be just like with the Broncos.

The bottom line, though, is that neither Smith or Lock is probably going to be the Seahawks long-term starter. If one of them is, it’ll probably be Lock as he is younger. When the games really matter, Lock will likely get more playing time. But there is nothing saying he should right now until he learns the offense better than Smith.