Geno Smith has seemingly never been afraid to speak his mind. This has sometimes gotten him in proverbial hot water, both with teammates and fans. The former Seattle Seahawks QB1 was shipped to the Las Vegas Raiders this offseason, apparently in part because of his lack of leadership skills.
Smith could get angry when mistakes were made. Sure, he got punched by a New York Jets teammate early in his career, partly because of Smith's temper, but 12s could see how Smith reacted to bad plays on the field with Seattle.
He might have accepted blame a bunch for whatever happened on the field after a game, and that's fine. It became a bit of white noise because Smith, like Russell Wilson before him, would say the same kinds of things in the same situation every time. His words became meaningless.
Seattle Seahawks fans might not love what Geno Smith recently said
But what he recently told ESPN might not be meaningless to 12s. While he is certainly happy to be back playing for head coach Pete Carroll after the coach gave the quarterback the chance that few other teams would have when Smith was made the Seahawks' QB1 in 2022, Smith might not have been happy playing in Seattle.
According to Ryan McFadden of ESPN, Smith said, "Vegas is perfect for me...Me being a Miami kid, and how I was raised and act, I really didn't fit the culture (in Seattle)."
What the heck does that mean? Las Vegas doesn't exactly have a sterling reputation. It is the gambling capital of the world and known as Sin City. Miami isn't known as a low-crime city, either.
And Seattle, like every place everywhere, has problems, but the Pacific Northwest is known to have a laid-back group of people who simply let people be themselves. What "culture" Geno Smith is speaking about, he will simply need to flesh out. His thoughts, like his quarterback play, appear unfinished and unsatisfying.
As far as the Seahawks organization, Smith threw a bit of possibly accidental shade at general manager John Schneider. After all, when Smith was given the chance to start in 2022, Schneider was the GM, and Pete Carroll was the head coach who had final say over the roster moves. Both gave Smith a chance to rebuild his career.
Smith, however, said, "I finally got my team. I always felt like I was trying to replace Russell (Wilson in Seattle), and you can never replace all the great things that he did. So I never felt like Seattle was my team. Also, I didn't feel like I fit the aesthetic of the Seattle organization. The Raiders just fit me."
The issue is that he continues to praise Carroll, who was obviously a part of the Seattle Seahawks culture long before Geno Smith was part of the team, but after Carroll left, Smith didn't feel like a fit with the team.
The hope now for Smith, as a player and person, is that he is still held accountable for his mistakes instead of given free rein. He threw three critical interceptions in Week 2, and his team was blown out. Seahawks fans know he can cost a team wins as well as win games unexpectedly, but after his most recent comments, 12s might wish he didn't do as well.