Stunner: Seahawks Flip Geno Smith to Raiders, Hit Reset Button at QB

Los Angeles, California, USA. 5th Jan, 2025. Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith #7 warms up prior to an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium, Sunday Jan. 5, 2025, in Inglewood, Calif. (Credit Image: © Ringo Chiu/ZUMA Press Wire

Putting an exclamation mark on a week full of chaos at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center, the Seattle Seahawks will be in the market for a new starting quarterback.

According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, the Seahawks have agreed to send two-time Pro Bowl starter Geno Smith to the Raiders, reuniting him with coach Pete Carroll, who awarded him the starting job as Russell Wilson’s replacement prior to the 2022 season. Seattle will receive a 2025 third-round pick in exchange for the veteran quarterback, who is expected to sign an extension with Las Vegas.

Per a league source, the Raiders will take on all $31 million left on Smith’s contract, creating $31 million in instant cap relief for the Seahawks.

Reviving his career in the Pacific Northwest, Smith beat out Drew Lock in a competition after the Seahawks traded Wilson to the Broncos in March 2022, tossing 30 touchdowns and finishing first in the NFL in completion percentage while leading the team back to the postseason wand winning Comeback Player of the Year honors. Though he wasn’t quite as sharp in 2023 or 2024 and Seattle barely missed the postseason both times, he still threw 41 touchdowns and led the team to 19 regular season wins, making a second Pro Bowl in 2023.

Only a week ago at the combine, Seahawks general manager John Schneider and coach Mike Macdonald reiterated their support for Smith as the team’s starting quarterback in 2025, with both referencing ongoing negotiations for an extension. But in a sequence reminiscent to when the organization traded Wilson days following Carroll saying they did “not intend” to trade the star quarterback, only a week later, he’s heading to the Sin City after the two sides were far apart on compensation for a new contract, turning an already wild offseason into a transformational one - for better or for worse.

With Smith now heading to Las Vegas to link back up with Carroll, Seattle currently has only two quarterbacks on the roster in Sam Howell and Jaren Hall. Howell started 16 games for the Commanders in 2023 and threw 21 touchdowns, but he was traded to the Seahawks in a pick swap shortly after the start of the new league year last spring and appeared in just one game with his new team, struggling mightily with 24 passing yards and an interception. Hall, a 2023 fifth-round pick out of BYU, has never taken a snap in an NFL regular season game.

Given the lack of experience on Seattle’s roster at the most important position in professional sports, speculation has already begun in regard to who will succeed Smith. Set to hit free agency, Minnesota quarterback Sam Darnold has been linked to the team by ESPN insider Adam Schefter, and there’s already a built-in connection between him and new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, who coached him as a pass game coordinator with the 49ers in 2023.

Like Smith, Darnold enjoyed a career resurrection with the Vikings last season after replacing injured rookie J.J. McCarthy during the preseason, guiding the team to a 14-3 record with 4,319 passing yards, 35 touchdowns, and five game-winning drives in coach Kevin O’Connell’s offense, which shares many similarities to Kubiak’s system stemming from long-time Broncos coach Mike Shanahan. He received MVP votes and made his first Pro Bowl, but with McCarthy fully recovered from knee surgery, the team is expected to let him hit the market after not placing a franchise tag on him.

Making a run at the 27-year old Darnold may prove to be nearly as expensive as the contract Smith will sign with the Raiders, as he’s clearly the top quarterback available in this year’s free agent class and could draw interest from numerous teams, driving up the price tag potentially. If that happens and another team wins a bidding war for his services, Schneider may have to turn to trying to acquire for Kirk Cousins, who lost his starting job with the Falcons last season but has previously thrived in Kubiak’s system when he was a starter with the Vikings.

Of course, drafting a quarterback to pair with a bridge veteran also remains on the table, though the Seahawks may have a difficult time positioning themselves to draft one of the top prospects next month. They currently hold the 18th overall pick in the first round, putting them well out of striking range for Miami’s Cam Ward or Colorado’s Shadeur Sanders, the top two consensus prospects in the class. The team did meet with Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart at the NFL combine and he may be a possibility in the first or second round.

Regardless of the direction that Seattle winds up going, Schneider’s latest bold move puts him squarely in the spotlight, as the pressure will be on him to find a long-term answer at the quarterback position after choosing to jettison a quality starter in Smith for just a third-round pick. If a viable replacement isn’t found, the decision to roll the dice has the potential to backfire.