For the Seattle Seahawks, Geno Smith’s season has been rather up and down. Smith threw two interceptions in the 36-24 loss to the San Francisco 49ers last week, which was undoubtedly a poor performance. Smith now has six picks this season, which is the same as the number of touchdown passes he has thrown. That somewhat detracts from Smith’s league-high 1,778 throwing yards thus far.
Additionally, this isn’t the first time Smith has had a run of picks since starting for Seattle. Smith was productive the rest of the season despite throwing six interceptions in four games from Weeks 6–9 of the previous campaign. Smith was fortunate not to throw more the previous season after another INT-heavy period in the second part of the campaign.
Nevertheless, the Seahawks must be rather happy with Smith’s performance during the past two and a half seasons. Vinnie Iyer of The Sporting News has Smith ranked 15th among NFL starting quarterbacks going into Week 7.
TSN on the ranking of Geno Smith
“Under Ryan Grubb, the former offensive coordinator at the University of Washington, Smith has adapted well to a passing system that is more aggressive and uptempo. With 1,778 passing yards, he leads the league and has space to improve his effectiveness under the new scheme.
In the long run, we would contend that Smith is just more talented on screen than Kirk Cousins (10th) and Brock Purdy (6th), and we like what Caleb Williams (13th) and Sam Darnold (14th) have been doing.
They haven’t been playing consistently enough lately to be ranked higher than Geno, who has been throwing well since the beginning of 2022. Since Smith is currently performing well, 15th place is rather fair, but we might be prepared to beat the table to get him as high as 11th.
Smith needs to stay away from these streaks of games when he just tries to do a bit too much if he ever wants to be listed in the top 10; it’s reminiscent of the early, ugly days of his career with the New York Jets, when he threw far more interceptions than touchdowns.
More importantly, the Seahawks have to find a way to protect Smith’s right flank, which has been problematic for far too long. Smith has his own issues but his ceiling is definitely getting dragged down by recurrent pass protection issues on that side.
