Geno Smith will be the Raiders starting quarterback when the 2025 season begins and every indication in the 24 hours since his trade was announced is that he won’t just be a stopgap QB in Las Vegas.
A contract extension is expected for Smith and according to Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter, the deal has the potential to be massive.
Until recently, the expectation was that Smith would return to the Seahawks next year, but ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported on Friday that contract talks between Smith and the Seahawks “stalled” and eventually went “backwards” in the days leading up to the trade.
The Raiders are apparently willing to give Smith a contract closer to what he is looking for and according to Carpenter, that might translate to as much as a five-year deal for the 34-year-old quarterback.
“I am hearing that it may end up being a five-year, $200 million deal with Geno,” Carpenter said the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast. “But you have remember something in the NFL. That doesn’t mean it’s a $200 million deal because you have to look at guaranteed money and everything else. It could be a five-year, $200 million deal, but it’s one that the Raiders could get out of after two or three years.”
Smith will probably end up with a more modest deal than five years, $200 million, but the bigger takeaway is that the team obviously views him as their QB1 for the foreseeable future.
For now, Smith and the Raiders are together on a one-year deal that comes with a $31 million salary cap hit. According to Spotrac, Smith has a base salary of $14.8 million in 2025 and a $16 million roster bonus that is due on March 16.
It will be interesting to see how many years and how much money the Raiders decide to commit to Smith, but it sure seems like new head coach Pete Carroll is ‘all in’ on his new quarterback.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter said on Friday night that if Carroll wasn’t in Las Vegas, Smith probably wouldn’t be there, either.
“Let’s be honest here, when Pete Carroll becomes the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, Pete Carroll is the one driving the acquisition of Geno Smith,” Schefter added on the dynamic that led Smith to the Raiders. “You need the support of Tom Brady, who has to sign off on it, but if the Raiders had hired Ben Johnson, or Kellen Moore, or Liam Coen as their head coach, I feel quite confident in saying Geno Smith would not be the quarterback of the Las Vegas Raiders today. He would still be in Seattle.”
If Tom Brady and company end up giving Smith a huge contract, it will be interesting to see how that dynamic would affect the draft.
Presumably, a $100 million in guaranteed money for Smith would eliminate any possibly of the Raiders taking Shedeur Sanders or any other quarterbacks in the first round.
A day-two of the draft quarterback like Will Howard or Jalen Milroe might still make sense, though.
x: @raidersbeat
Disgusting.
Brady, Spytek, and Carroll are fools at best.
Smith is an awful acquisition, especially at the price of a 3rd round pick.
Carroll lost whatever he had a long time ago.
This is going to be a mess.
That’s what needs to happen. Draft a qb for the future. Hopefully Smith pans out and doesn’t turn out to be another Minshew. And what about Carter Bradley? I would like to know if he is still a viable option?
Pete Carroll is a senile fool.
Trying to turn us into the Las Vegas Seahawks.
Someone let him know the Seahawks haven’t been relevant in a decade.
Right now, we have exactly two competent people in the entire organization.
That would be Chip Kelly and Patrick Graham.
The rest, from ownership, to GM, to head coach is a comedy show.
Every Eagles fan I know are laughing at us and asking me what the hell we’re doing with Geno freaking Smith.
Reality check here, Gino Smith was the best option we had ,but I wouldn’t go crazy with a long-term contract, and i would include an out clause!