We got our first shocking move of the NFL offseason on Friday night as the Las Vegas Raiders traded a third-round pick to the Seattle Seahawks for quarterback Geno Smith. This trade dramatically changed the outlook for both teams in 2025. And it also raised several questions with not-so-obvious answers. Is Seattle in a full-on rebuild? What does this mean for DK Metcalf? After striking out on Matthew Stafford, why did the Raiders’ new brass, led by Tom Brady and Pete Carroll, pivot to Smith? And what does this mean for the rest of the offseason quarterback market? Now that we’ve had some time to process the trade, let’s try to answer all of those questions, starting with the one that every Raiders fan had after the news broke.
What are the Raiders getting in Geno Smith?
The trade seemed to come out of nowhere, but perhaps we should have seen the Raiders’ side of it coming. “Always compete” has been the mantra of new Vegas head coach Pete Carroll for decades, and now that the Super Bowl and national championship winner is nearing his mid-70s, it’s safe to assume that he was never going to be interested in a multiyear rebuild. Trading for Smith allows him—and a Raiders organization that has spent the past 20-plus years looking for stability—to avoid that. At least in theory.
If you’ve ever checked out The Ringer’s NFL Quarterback Rankings, you already know how I feel about Smith’s game. He’s been hovering in and around my top 10 for the past two seasons. And while there have been times when his production has matched that sort of evaluation, there have been other instances when Smith looks more like a mid-tier passer who’s prone to mistakes. Based on the trade compensation Las Vegas shelled out and the reported value of the deal Smith is expected to sign with his new team (around $40 million a season), the Raiders seem to believe he falls somewhere in between those two appraisals.
My more optimistic view of Smith is based on his pocket presence, accuracy, and arm strength. He’s an old-school pocket passer who has just enough mobility to beat defenses via scramble. He’s also irrationally confident, which allows him to occasionally make throws that only the NFL’s best quarterbacks can pull off—but can also lead to mistakes. The flaws in Seattle’s 2024 offense—which included leaky pass protection and a first-year offensive coordinator, Ryan Grubb, who came from the college game and appeared to be out of his depth in the pros—often forced Smith to rely on those strengths. There are countless examples of Smith wading through a messy pocket to buy just enough time to get off an impressive downfield throw. But with Smith under constant pressure in the pocket and Seattle’s offense consistently falling behind the chains due to an ineffective run game, he was playing the game on hard mode. Mistakes were inevitable in that kind of environment.
Smith ended the 2024 season with 15 interceptions. Only Baker Mayfield and Kirk Cousins had more last season. But Smith was a bit unlucky in that department. Per Pro Football Focus, he had a league-average turnover-worthy play rate of 2.6 percent. That tied him with Josh Allen, the league’s MVP, and put him ahead of Jordan Love, Tua Tagovailoa, Jared Goff, Matthew Stafford, Sam Darnold, and Jalen Hurts—quarterbacks who enjoyed cushier offensive surroundings.
For a 34-year-old, Smith hasn’t played a lot of football. He ranks 14th in career dropbacks among active players, with 10 of the players above him having entered the league after him, per TruMedia, which makes it harder to evaluate his true talent level. But he did throw a lot of passes over his three seasons as Seattle’s starter. Only Patrick Mahomes has had more dropbacks over that span. And according to Pro Football Focus’s grading, only six quarterbacks performed better during that time: Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Allen, Justin Herbert, Mahomes, and Tagovailoa. Smith did that in offenses that didn’t put him in advantageous situations or provide easy sources of production.
As things stand, the Raiders won’t be providing any of those perks, either. Las Vegas does have some talent on its offense—in tight end Brock Bowers, receiver Jakobi Meyers, and guard Jackson Powers-Johnson—but not nearly enough to launch a proper challenge for the AFC West title. They’ll have to add more pieces in free agency, which officially kicks off Monday, and in the draft: The Raiders have three picks in the top 75, including no. 6 overall. When training camp begins in four months, the offensive depth chart will look a lot different. Las Vegas may not have what it takes to prop up a fringe top-10 quarterback at the moment, but they’re essentially a pass catcher and some solid offensive line additions away—and they have the time and resources to get it done.
As the Raiders have discovered over the last two decades, it’s impossible to win in this league without competent coaching and quarterback play. By hiring Pete Carroll, who brought in Chip Kelly as his offensive coordinator and retained defensive coordinator Patrick Graham, Las Vegas has put together a strong staff. And if Smith is the quarterback that I, and a lot of useful metrics, suggest he is, they should be able to check off that second box. By trading for Smith, the Raiders are getting a chance to win now. They’ll need a strong offseason—with a focus on the offensive line—to get the results they’re chasing, but the path to competitiveness is clearer than it was two days ago.
Where do the Seahawks go from here?
With the Seahawks seemingly intent on gutting their receiver room—they released Tyler Lockett and granted DK Metcalf permission to seek a trade last week—it appears from the outside looking in that Seattle is headed for a full rebuild. But their actions in the next few weeks should provide us with a clear answer about the team’s outlook for the 2025 season. In the wake of the Smith trade, there have been several reports suggesting that the Seahawks will try to remain competitive next season. They’ve been strongly linked with free-agent quarterback Sam Darnold, who will likely command a contract that pays him at least $40 million per season. And the team also reportedly opened their trade talks with Las Vegas by trying to land Maxx Crosby, a 27-year-old edge rusher who was already one of the highest-paid players at his position before the Raiders gave him a monster extension last week. That’s not a typical move for a team that’s trying to blow up its roster.
What the Smith trade does seem to signal is Seattle’s commitment to new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak’s system. Kubiak worked with Darnold in San Francisco in 2023, and the free-agent quarterback is coming off a successful season in Minnesota, where he operated within a similar style of offense. Darnold is at his best when he’s getting the ball out in rhythm and doesn’t have to do too much extra thinking in the pocket. Smith is a more cerebral passer in the pocket, which most teams would prefer in a vacuum, but it’s not a prerequisite for finding success in this type of system. A comparison of their career statistics or film would show that Smith is a better quarterback than Darnold, but the latter is the kind of player that coaches from the Kyle Shanahan/Sean McVay tree tend to favor. The Seahawks aren’t rebuilding their offense from the ground up; they’re reshaping it on the fly to accommodate what Kubiak wants to do.
Darnold’s a better fit for the offense, and given his age (27 compared to Smith’s 34), Seattle will be more comfortable giving him a long-term deal. Darnold and Smith will likely end up in similar spots on the quarterback payscale based on average annual salary, but it’s easier to spread that money around on, say, a four-year contract than it would be on a two-year pact.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if Metcalf rescinded his trade request now that Smith is in Vegas. While those two combined for some moments of magic over their seasons together, there were signs that they didn’t have a great rapport. If that was in fact the case, then Seattle dealing Smith and following that up with a lucrative contract offer for Metcalf could be enough to get back on the receiver’s good side. The Seahawks are reportedly seeking a first- and third-round pick in exchange for the 27-year-old, which doesn’t sound realistic for a guy who’s in need of a contract extension. This could be another example of a team allowing a player to gauge his market, which can help set the table for contract negotiations. We saw that happen with Lamar Jackson and Baltimore back in 2023 and most recently with Stafford and the Rams.
Unless Seattle does get a godfather offer for Metcalf, the conclusion of his trade request/contract negotiations should provide clarity on Seattle’s timeline. Cutting Lockett and trading Smith don’t necessarily signal that a rebuild is coming, but trading Metcalf after pulling off those two moves would.
Was this a Tom Brady-backed decision?
Tom Brady’s first season in the booth for Fox was … fine. But one of the perks of having the league’s greatest quarterback calling games was hearing his (almost) unfiltered thoughts on the NFL’s current group of passers. Brady wasn’t overly harsh, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out how he felt about a quarterback—and whether they played the position the correct way in his eyes. Based on the one Seahawks game he called in 2024, a rain-soaked 31-10 loss to the Bills in Week 8, it was clear that Geno Smith was one of the guys who did.
“He can stand in the pocket and fire it with the best of them,” Brady said of Smith after a short completion at the end of the first quarter. “I love that about him, and I love [him] throwing that ball quickly.”
A few plays later, Smith recognized the Bills were playing man coverage on a third-and-4 play and called an audible to exploit the tactic, drawing a “love this” from Brady. After Smith climbed the pocket and found Laviska Shenault for the first down, Brady let out one of his signature grunts of approval.
“Geno really has control at the line of scrimmage and ownership of this offense,” Brady proclaimed after Smith made another pre-snap change later in the drive.
All in all, it was an ugly day for Smith and the Seahawks offense, but Brady consistently cited the flaws in the unit’s structure as the problem rather than the quarterback’s play. For instance, after Smith threw an interception on a busted screen play, Brady said, “That’s the problem with being in the shotgun and allowing them to tee off all day; I know it’s a screen pass, but it’s just bad football by the Seahawks.”
And when the run game and offensive line struggled, he said: “When you don’t have [a reliable run game], with Seattle, you’re always trying to hunt-and-peck until you find what really works. The passing game they can depend on, but they’re going to have to run the ball to keep the pressure off Geno and that offensive line.”
If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because that’s what was going on with the Buccaneers during Brady’s final season in Tampa. The Bucs’ offensive line couldn’t protect the 40-something quarterback, the run game was at the bottom of the league’s efficiency charts, and Brady ended up as one of the league leaders in pass attempts—and the unofficial league leader in passing attempts that came with the deck stacked heavily against him. Brady might be the only exec in the NFL who really knows what Smith was going through last season and the toll that such a harsh offensive environment can take on a quarterback’s performance.
Unsurprisingly, after two decades as an NFL quarterback, Brady developed some strong opinions on how the position should be played, and it seems as if Smith does things in a way that Brady approves of. The former Seahawks quarterback may not have been at the top of GOAT’s QB wishlist this offseason—that seemed to be Stafford after their “accidental” meet-up in Colorado last month—but he wasn’t far off.
What does this trade mean for the offseason QB market?
We know that NFL teams would never try to engage with a free-agent-to-be before the league’s legal tampering period, so Seattle can’t possibly know whether Darnold is interested in joining the Seahawks when free agency kicks off next week. But a lot of reporting suggests that he is—and that a deal is likely to happen. Minnesota is already making plans to fill the hole in the depth chart that Darnold’s departure will create, meaning Daniel Jones could have a home there next season. And Pittsburgh, another QB-needy team, is reportedly interested in running it back with Justin Fields or Russell Wilson—because that worked out so well for them last season. That gives us a much clearer view on how the quarterback market should play out over the next few weeks.
If Darnold to Seattle is in fact a done deal, the next big domino to fall will likely come in New York, where both the Giants and Jets are in the market for a veteran quarterback. The Giants and Aaron Rodgers reportedly have mutual interest in one another, and based on the seasons those two sides are coming off of, they may have no choice but to hitch their wagons together. After barely surviving a disastrous 2024 campaign, Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen presumably have to win in 2025 to have any chance of keeping their jobs. And while Rodgers is no longer the quarterback he was in Green Bay, he might give those two the best chance at being competitive right away. If Rodgers doesn’t land with the Giants, he could be in danger of getting the same treatment Bill Belichick got from the league last offseason. The Giants aren’t the most attractive option for a notoriously picky quarterback, but there aren’t any other destinations that make a lot of sense for a 41-year-old who’s coming off a down season.
The Jets, meanwhile, have a new regime, with Aaron Glenn taking over as head coach and Darren Mougey leading the front office. And they’re likely to take some extra time to survey the market rather than rush into a decision. They could be a candidate to try to land Kirk Cousins—because while Atlanta says it has no plans to release the QB, it’s unlikely they’ll want to keep a $40 million backup on the books now that they’ve declared Michael Penix Jr. to be their starter. They could attempt to get something back for Cousins before a $10 million roster bonus for 2026 is triggered on March 15. But if they can’t, and they cut the QB, Cousins could come cheap for the Jets in free agency. He’d likely take a league-minimum deal wherever he ended up next, as Wilson did in Pittsburgh last season. And if Cousins could bounce back from his late-season dip in 2024, his new team would have the option of giving him a long-term deal next offseason. The Colts and Browns could emerge as potential destinations for Cousins, as well, but both teams are already pot-committed to other quarterbacks and it’s unlikely the veteran will be interested in fighting for a starting job in training camp. If he signs with the Jets, he’ll walk into the starting lineup, as the team is out of range to take one of the top prospects in this thinner quarterback draft class.
Before news of the Smith trade broke, it appeared as if we’d be in for a wild offseason of quarterback moves. Now, we may already know how it will play out.
