The Seahawks’ decision to trade Geno Smith came as a little bit of a surprise last week, and there have been a few conflicting stories around how his time in Seattle came to an end.
Leading up to the trade, the Raiders had been linked to a few veteran quarterbacks, but there wasn’t a lot of talk about them potentially trading for Smith. There were some spitball conversations around Smith and the Raiders, but nothing more than speculation.
One of the reasons there wasn’t more talk around a potential trade involving Smith, though, might have been because the Seahawks weren’t expecting a trade to happen.
According to Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times, the Seahawks were blindsided by Smith’s apparent 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 this weekend.
“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.
According to The Athletic’s Tashan Reed, the Raiders made Smith the focus of their trade efforts early last week.
“After striking out in their effort to trade for Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford last week, minority owner Tom Brady, [Pete] Carroll, general manager John Spytek, offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and quarterback coach Greg Olson held meetings at team headquarters in Henderson, Nev., to chart the path forward at quarterback,” Reed reported on Saturday.
“After those meetings, the Raiders came to a consensus that Smith was the best veteran quarterback available this offseason. Why was Las Vegas so set on acquiring a veteran quarterback? Coming out of the NFL Scouting Combine last week, several members of the Raiders’ offensive coaching staff preferred adding a proven veteran to taking a dice roll on a rookie quarterback, according to league sources.”
Obviously, the Raiders couldn’t reach out to Smith to convince him to leave Seattle, but there are plenty of ways to communicate with opposing players that don’t qualify as tampering.
Safe to say, Smith is exactly where he wants to be in Las Vegas.
The landscape has changed in Seattle since Pete Carroll left, and the stars lined up last week for Carroll and his former quarterback to reunite.
If true that Smith didn’t counteroffer after the Seahawks’ last offer and the Raiders entered the mix at about the same time, the rest of the blanks we can probably fill in rather easily.
x: @raidersbeat
Geno Smith was the best we could do with what was out there ,however I wouldn’t make it a multi year contract and have an out clause in it!
Agreed. Still need to draft a guy on day 2, or trade back into the first if one of those guys slides.
Gotta get much improved along the OL or no QB will be effective. Signing players off the waiver wire won’t result in improved OL play.