Geno Smith hasn’t played up to the $75 million contract he signed in the offseason, but there is still time for the veteran quarterback to turn his season around. A much-needed matchup with the Tennessee Titans awaits and week 6 will be a good opportunity for Smith and the Raiders to jumpstart the season.
The Titans are arguably the worst team in the NFL right now, and Yahoo/FOX Sports host Jason Fitz essentially called next week’s game a ‘must win’ for the Raiders.
“You lose to this Titans team, and all of a sudden, you’re having a real conversation about whether this is suddenly a three-win football team,” Fitz said on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate. “I think a loss to the Titans would be the most suffocating outcome that you could possibly imagine for the rest of this season, for this team.”
The Raiders (-4.5) are slight favorites to win on Sunday, but if they lose it might be time to press pause on the Geno Smith experiment for a while.
Hypothetically, if the Raiders start thinking about moving on at quarterback, they have more flexibility with Smith’s contract than a typical contract containing $58.5 million in guaranteed money.
According to Spotrac’s Michael Ginnitti, the Raiders can move on from Smith’s contract next year with only $18.5 million in dead money.
OverTheCap confirms that figure, and there is another detail that probably won’t become relevant, but if the Raiders somehow find a trade partner for Smith before the November 4 deadline, they wouldn’t accrue any dead money, according to OverTheCap’s chart below.
It’s highly unlikely that anyone would trade for Smith’s contract, but if a playoff team happened to lose their quarterback before the trade deadline… never say never?
x: @raidersbeat
Who was it that was popping off about overpaying him? The only sticking point is if they’re smart enough to cut him loose or swindle somebody else.
Hopefully, Carroll doesn’t get to pick the next QB!
Hopefully he isn’t here
Doesn’t matter who the Raiders pick, in the draft, if it isn’t the right person and does anyone have any confidence that this team will nail their draft picks?
💯!!! They went 0-11 in year one so absolutely zero faith they’d get the right pieces.