Everyone knows about Pete Carroll’s history with Geno Smith, but according to NFL insider Adam Caplan, Raiders’ offensive coordinator Chip Kelly wanted Smith long before Carroll ever had him.
In a Friday segment with flagship radio host Q Myers, Caplan said Smith was the quarterback Kelly wanted in Philadelphia more than a decade ago.
“Interesting little fact for you. Chip Kelly, when he was the Eagles head coach, Geno Smith was his guy leading up to the draft,” Caplan said on Raider Nation Radio’s Unnecessary Roughness.
“Actually, it was really…. I would say, the combine, the offseason, and then they went to his pro day work out at West Virginia and they kind of moved off of him. But [Chip Kelly] knows Geno. He studied him. He thought he was a good fit for him… I know it’s a long time ago, but he’s more than familiar with [Geno].”
Smith might not have been the Raiders’ first choice at quarterback, but there is reason to believe the Carroll/Smith reunion was in the works well before it came to fruition.
According to Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times, the Seahawks were blindsided by Smith’s disinterest in working on a new deal. Just days after the veteran quarterback rebuffed a $40+ million offer from the Seahawks, the Raiders showed up and a deal came together quickly.
“While reports vary, one person with knowledge of the situation said the [Seahawks] offer was a two-year deal in the $40-45 million per year range, similar to that of Matthew Stafford of the Rams, who has a four-year, $160 million deal with L.A. That would have kept Smith under contract through the 2027 season,” Condotta reported in March.
The team made the offer early in the week and hoped to wrap things up by the end of the week. Seattle, instead, is said to have gotten no counteroffer.”
Coincidentally, the timing of negotiations breaking down between Smith and the Seahawks lines up closely to when the Raiders reportedly reached the decision to pursue him.
x: @raidersbeat
What a misleading headline. In this report Chip was all in on Geno until he went to actually watch him at his pro day. Geno 5-8 years ago would’ve been a better fit for Chip than now. This is nothing more than trying to lift up an old, not as mobile, good QB above his reality.