What were some major observations from Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith's performance against the San Francisco 49ers in Week 12?
The Seahawks are now 6-5, and could very well be headed to a 6-8 record by the time Week 16 comes around. 12s can hope for the best, of course. But after watching Seattle get smashed by the 49ers just a few weeks after being destroyed by the Ravens, having hope can be difficult.
Seattle just doesn't seem to have the offensive and defensive schemes and talent to matchup against the better teams in the league right now. In fact, Seattle seems to have digressed since 2022 somehow. Turnovers do not help, obviously.
Seattle had two of them in Week 12, including an interception on a Geno Smith pass. Overall, though, how did Smith do against the 49ers?
Geno Smith simply had little time to do much of anything
Geno Smith could make better decisions with the ball many times, and I am not going to try to argue that otherwise. His interception on a pass intended for Tyler Lockett was a thing of ugliness. Lockett was well-covered so I am not sure what Smith hoped the outcome of his toss would be. But while Smith does make mistakes, he also doesn't have a lot of time in which to decide what to do with the ball.
Smith was sacked six times and hit 12 times in Week 12. On a couple of those, could he maybe have thrown the ball away? Possibly. But sometimes it is also just better to eat the ball. 4 of the 49ers' sacks came when the defender started within 4 yards of Geno Smith. That means the 49ers are crunching the line and the Seahawks offensive line simply needs to be a lot quicker to react to the pass rush. Maybe Seattle just doesn't have the talent to do that along the offensive line, though.
The total number of sacks Seattle has allowed this season is misleading. Seattle has given up 27 which is not top-ten in the NFL, but against good teams Seattle doesn't block well - 49ers got 6 sacks in Week 12, Ravens got 4 in Week 9, Bengals got 4 in Week 6. This is an issue with the team overall: Seattle isn't a bad team, but they simply are not good enough to compete with teams that are clearly better than they are, of which there are many.
Let's get used to Geno Smith forcing throws
In 2022, Geno Smith did not turn the ball over much early in the season. But it wasn't like Seattle was keeping him under wraps. Smith threw long often enough. Possibly other teams simply did not know what to expect from Geno Smith and the Seahawks offense, at least until teams started to figure Seattle out a bit over halfway through the season. Then, Smith began having quite a few more turnovers - 5 turnovers through Week 9 and then 10 turnovers in the last eight games.
In 2023, Smith has 10 turnovers in the first 11 games, but he has 9 turnovers in the last seven games. 7 of those are interceptions but Smith also has just 7 touchdown passes in the last seven games as well. While excuses will be made about Smith's interceptions - the receiver ran the wrong route or whatever - Peyton Manning used to say that every pass he throws he has signed his name to and many of the picks are forced passes.
The issue is not completely on Smith, however. His receivers simply are not getting open either. I saw one social media post that said "Geno Smith is always throwing contested passes!" OK, maybe. But is that all his fault? Receivers have to help quarterbacks out as well and find ways to get open. If a quarterback is always throwing contested passes that is because his receivers are not getting as open as they need.
Still, Smith has thrown a couple of horrible passes near the end zone this year that have ended drives as the passes were picked, and his pass to Tyler Lockett against the 49ers was simply a ball he should not have thrown. But before people start commenting that Drew Lock would be better, he wouldn't. Also, people making those comments are saying they know more than the Seahawks coaches who see both Smith and Lock in training camp, preseason, and practice and the people commenting are foolish if they think they know more than the coaches do. Stop dreaming.
DK Metcalf must have the goods on Geno Smith
There was a time not too long ago that DK Metcalf would get between 4 and 8 targets a game and the tight ends would combine for about 7 targets. That simply no longer happens as Geno Smith seems to try to force the ball to DK Metcalf a lot more than he was. I am not bringing up Tyler Lockett's targets here because Lockett deserves the same number of targets as Metcalf.
Between Weeks 1 and 4, Metcalf got 5.7 targets per game. Since then, Metcalf's target rate has jumped to 9.5 targets a game with five of the six games seeing Metcalf targets at least 9 times. Of the 57 targets in the last six games, though, Metcalf has caught just 25 of the passes. He simply isn't finding ways to get open and he does not fight for the ball on deep passes.
In the first four games, Seattle's tight ends were targeted 6.8 times a game. That is still not enough, though, when a team has tight ends who can catch well, and Noah Fant, Will Dissly, and Colby Parkinson can all catch and run a bit. Of the tight ends 27 total targets in the first four games, 22 were completed. But in the last seven games, the tight ends only averaged 5.1 targets per game with 21 of 36 targets being caught.
The Seahawks offense works a lot better when Geno Smith is spreading the ball around and taking what the defense gives him. That used to be including the tight ends more. But now we see the ball forced to a mostly unopen DK Metcalf a lot more. This is clearly intentional by the Seahawks, but it needs to stop and Fant, Parkinson, and Dissly need the ball more.