Quarterback Geno Smith has completed his third season as the starting quarterback in Seattle. Head coach Mike Macdonald hopes there will be at least a fourth.
“I want Geno to be here,” Macdonald told reporters on Monday. “I think he’s a heck of a player. The first thing it always comes back to is what’s best for the team. I feel like Geno is the best for the team right now. I’ll be involved with it, ultimately it’s not my decision. It’s a Seahawks decision. But, Geno knows how we feel about him and we love him as our starting quarterback for sure.”
The decision ultimately will be made by G.M. John Schneider, who emerged with final say over the roster last year, following the departure of coach Pete Carroll.
Smith signed a three-year, $75 million contract after the 2022 season. The deal was structured to give the team the ability to tear it up after each of the first two seasons. He now enters the final year of his contract, with a $16 million roster bonus due on March 16, and a $14.8 million base salary. A $200,000 workout bonus pushes the total package to $31 million.
The quick deadline forces the Seahawks to decide sooner than later whether to activate the third year. The bigger question is whether he’ll get an extension and a raise.
Smith wanted a new deal after the 2023 season, but it didn’t happen.
Regardless, Macdonald’s position on his quarterback is clear. He wants Smith back.
“We did a lot of really good things and one of those things is Geno’s productivity, and this is something that I’m looking forward to building off of,” Macdonald said. “I thought he had a really good year, we had a conversation yesterday, and the feeling you get was he’s proud of the things we did, but felt like we could have done a better job as an offense and as a team and could have put ourselves in a position going to the tournament to go make a run at this thing.”
One factor will be the new offensive coordinator. Will they hire someone who will be prepared to get the most out of Smith, or will the new offensive coach have a system to which Smith will have to adapt?
“Anytime you’re bringing anybody in coaching-wise, you want to understand what their vision is based off the players that we have and how they would kind of deploy everything,” Macdonald said. “That’s going to be definitely a topic of conversation.”
Smith, 34, has made it clear that he has more than a few years left. The Seahawks could squat on the final year of the contract and make a decision in 2026, or they could give him security beyond 2025 with a long-term deal.
The challenge will be pegging the right value. The top of the market has reached $60 million. Where does Smith land on that scale?
In 2024, Smith threw for 4,320 yards (good for fourth in the league) and 21 touchdowns. He had 15 interceptions and a passer rating of 93.2.
For any team that is evaluating whether to keep its current quarterback, there’s a very important question to ask. If we move on, who will replace him?
