It took Geno Smith having one bad game to make sense of one offseason Seahawks move

Geno Smith did not have a good game against the San Francisco 49ers in Week 6 on Thursday Night Football. The Seattle Seahawks quarterback threw two interceptions, and both looked like atrocious passes. The first was an overthrow of Tyler Lockett on Seattle's first drive of the game. It looked like a promising start, but it ended in doom.

The second interception looked just as bad, though whether Smith is completely at fault for the pick is open for debate. He was trying to get the ball to receiver DK Metcalf and appeared to wretchedly underthrow the ball. To be fair to Smith, Metcalf appeared not to come out of his route and Smith likely threw the ball where he thought Metcalf was going to be (and should have been).

Still, the quarterback is the one who threw the pass, and his name will be attached to the interceptions, whether that is right or wrong. After the game, Smith took ownership of both picks at first, but when pressed about other bad throws, he simply said to "watch the film." Smith took the blame, but he might not have truly felt he was at fault.

The Seahawks' Geno Smith question gets more difficult after poor Week 6 performance

An issue was that Smith has had to carry the team at times this season, and he needed to prove his value once again on Thursday Night Football against Seattle's NFC West rival. He failed. Besides the interceptions, he threw many passes too high for his receivers in the first half and missed an open Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the fourth quarter.

He also missed seeing a wide-open Kenneth Walker III late in the fourth quarter when Smith was forced to scramble and threw short instead. The problem was that Walker was on the side of the field that Smith was running to. He should have been able to see Walker. Another quarterback might have.

That question is the biggest the Seahawks will need to answer next offseason: Would Seattle be better off with a different quarterback as soon as 2025? Should Sam Howell, the much less expensive option at quarterback, take over for Smith? If Seattle were to release Smith, the team would save $25 million. Does the savings outweigh the worth of keeping Smith?

Smith is not a bad quarterback, but he is not a great one. He is never going to be great. He is now 34 years old, and while he did not play much for many years as a backup and did not get beat up, he still isn't suddenly going to get much better. He's good enough to win a lot of games, but he isn't so great that he can beat better teams, such as the 49ers, consistently. To win a Super Bowl, Seattle might need a quarterback who can do that.

The key here is the offseason acquisition of Howell. He is only owed a little over $1 million in 2025. He has starting experience, too. He has not shown to be a high-end winner yet, but he is also only 24 years old. If the Seahawks once again go 9-8, then wholesale changes might need to be made. That could include releasing Smith, saving $25 million, and inserting Howell as QB1 for at least one season next year.

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