Geno Smith wasn't happy with what the Seattle Seahawks were going to pay him in the future, and the team and the player decided that maybe parting ways was the best thing moving forward. At least, some of that is true based on who you believe.
Smith wanted to be traded, or he didn't. No matter, he was. The Seahawks dealt him to the Las Vegas Raiders, where Smith was reunited with former Seattle head coach Pete Carroll. Also, Jamal Adams ended up being there, too. It's a weird year.
In Week 1, Las Vegas won, but barely, and Smith did Geno Smith things. He had an early touchdown pass, and then had an interception when he threw into triple coverage. He finished with a classic Smith stat-line: He passed for 362 yards, he had the one TD and INT, and his team scored 20 points.
Geno Smith looked like he did with the Seattle Seahawks for the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 1
All the while, the quarterback was airing the ball out. He had nine completions of 20-plus yards against the New England Patriots. That is a fantastic number. But he did such things with the Seattle Seahawks, too. The issue is how many points Smith's offenses score. 362 yards passing should equal more than 20 points.
Still, he did something that Seattle didn't do in Week 1, and that is take chances. The Seahawks scored just 13 points with a conservative approach to attacking the San Francisco 49ers. New QB1 Sam Darnold wasn't bad, but he wasn't great either. He finished 16 of 23 passing, but for only 150 yards.
Smith averaged 15 yards a completion, and Darnold was only 9.4. Seattle could have used a lot more of Geno Smith-style quarterbacking in Week 1. That isn't Darnold's fault, but offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak's.
This also isn't a treatise on how Kubiak needs to be fired after coaching the Seahawks for one game. That would be ridiculous. In all likelihood, Seattle's offense will be just fine under Kubiak with Darnold as the quarterback.
But for one week (the first week of the 2025 NFL season), the Seattle Seahawks missed Geno Smith. Maybe we will see Sam Darnold throw the ball deep a bit more in Week 2.