SEATTLE — Inside a mostly subdued Seattle Seahawks locker room, soundtracked mostly by private conversations among players in small scrums, Geno Smith sat alone at his stall, shirtless, staring blankly into space while processing what just unfolded on Sunday afternoon at Lumen Field.
As the starting quarterback, Smith has a mandated postgame news conference regardless of the outcome. Smith knows he can’t just shower, decline interview requests and shuffle out of the back door. In his 12th NFL season and third as Seattle’s starter, Smith is not new to this routine.
But there was something different about Sunday’s postgame scene, almost as if the 34-year-old quarterback knew explaining what transpired in the Seahawks’ 26-20 overtime loss to the Los Angeles Rams would be unlike any of his other media sessions.
It was. For the first time, Smith stepped to the podium and began with an apology to his teammates, the city of Seattle and the Seahawks organization.
“They put a lot of trust in me with my decision-making, and when they put the ball in my hands, when my teammates play the way they played today and give us a shot to win the game, I’ve got to make sure we do,” Smith said. “The things I did today, mistakes that I made, they affected us negatively and really cost us the game today. I know how much this is going to hurt. I’m going to step it up, though.”
Here’s Geno Smith’s postgame press conference opener apologizing to his teammates, city of Seattle and the organization for making mistakes today that he says cost the Seahawks the game pic.twitter.com/I0zrrjXbl2
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A few minutes later, while explaining his third interception and stating that he needs to play better, Smith said, “I’m not just saying that to say it. I really know that I can be better.”
That part stood out because Smith vowing to be better and claiming he didn’t play well enough to get the job done isn’t out of the ordinary. Specifying that he wasn’t just spewing quarterback-speak felt like an acknowledgment that he has done so in the past. But on Sunday, Smith looked like a man who genuinely believed — perhaps for the first time as their starter — he was the primary reason the Seahawks lost the game.
“If I do my job and don’t have those turnovers, don’t have that pick six — that’s a 14-point swing right there — we win that game, in my opinion,” Smith said. “When that’s the case, I look directly at myself. I look in the mirror and I say, ‘What do I have to do?’ And I know what I have to do. So, I’ve got to get it corrected.”
Smith completed 21 of 34 passes for 363 yards and three touchdowns but was intercepted three times, and one of those was returned 103 yards for a score to give the Rams a 20-13 lead with 10:59 remaining in the fourth quarter. Smith was pressured and hit while trying to throw the ball out of the back of the end zone on first-and-goal from the 6, causing a massive swing in a game Seattle lost by six points.
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This was Smith’s 44th regular-season start in Seattle, and it was his first time with three turnovers. It’s only the second time he’s thrown a pick six; the other instance occurred in Week 9 of 2022 against Arizona. In that game, Smith responded by leading three straight touchdown drives in a victory.
On Sunday, Smith’s pick six was followed by his third interception, while trying to sidearm a pass to tight end AJ Barner on second-and-goal from the 4. Barner was grabbed by a defensive lineman on the play, which threw off the timing, but Smith said that was no excuse for his decision. Barner also took the blame.
“At the end of the day, just gotta play through that contact,” Barner said. “That one is on me.”
Smith reverted to quarterback-speak for the rest of his news conference. He said center Connor Williams is doing a “great job” despite obvious evidence to the contrary and pointed the finger at himself when asked why the team is 4-5 after a 3-0 start.
“There’s a lot of different contributors,” Smith said. “If I’m being honest, I could play better, and I could correct a lot of things. That’s the job of the quarterback to overcome and ultimately to get wins.”
Smith’s job is to overcome adversity, but the fact that he has to do that so often because of shortcomings among his supporting cast makes it fair to question whether he is the real problem as Seattle enters its Week 10 bye.
When asked to assess Smith’s performance Sunday, head coach Mike Macdonald went elsewhere.
“He made some big-time plays for us,” Macdonald said of Smith, who led two touchdown drives to end the first half and another to tie the game at the end of regulation. “It’s not easy. Didn’t have a lot of time back there. They had a good rush plan. We’ve got to protect him better.”
Macdonald said Smith needed to make “smarter decisions” when referencing the interceptions and then added: “We’ve got to finish drives. We’ve got to take care of the football.”
Macdonald usually waits until he’s watched the film before giving a negative assessment of the offensive line, and it’s probably not a coincidence that he started a response to a question about Smith by talking about the protection. Smith was sacked seven times, matching the career high set in the Week 5 loss to the Giants. He was pressured on 37.2 percent of his dropbacks (all stats provided by TruMedia).
Smith ranks fifth in the NFL in pressure rate yet has an average pressure-to-sack ratio. Smith has been hit 61 times; only three quarterbacks have been hit more often: Deshaun Watson, Daniel Jones and C.J. Stroud.
Smith and Stroud have similar statistical profiles this year while facing similarly adverse conditions. The Seahawks rank second in offensive penalties; the Texans are third (Seattle also ranks second in offensive penalty EPA, trailing only the Browns). Stroud ranks sixth in pressure rate, one spot behind Smith. Stroud’s left tackle leads the league in penalties; Smith’s right guard ranks fifth. Both have interior linemen among the league leaders at their position in sacks allowed and pressure rate.
When the degree of difficulty is high due to penalties and poor pass protection — not to mention playing without WR1, as Smith (DK Metcalf) and Stroud (Nico Collins) have done — good quarterbacks can look pedestrian and, eventually, cost their teams games.
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Smith has put enough tape to have earned the benefit of the doubt. His performance Sunday doesn’t crack his top-10 worst by any relevant raw or advanced statistical measure despite the career-high turnover total, which speaks to how many other big plays he delivered.
Smith’s use of a hard count created multiple free plays that led to explosive passes, including Tyler Lockett’s 30-yard touchdown and Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s 46-yard reception, both late in the second quarter. Smith accounted for 86 yards of offense and the game-tying score on the final drive of regulation, including a 29-yard slot fade to Smith-Njigba on fourth-and-5. Smith’s only dropback in overtime was a 31-yard pass to Smith-Njigba that put Seattle in scoring position, which also came on a free play after Smith’s cadence drew Kobie Turner offside.
There’s enough evidence to believe Smith will play better than he did Sunday even if the circumstances around him don’t improve much.
Smith-Njigba had a career-high 180 yards and two scores but also had one of Smith’s interceptions bounce off his hands. The second-year wideout said he had “total confidence” that Smith would bounce back and lead a game-tying drive after those three turnovers because “he’s done it again and again and again.”
“I know if we give him time, we run the right routes, we do what we’re supposed to do, he’s going to put the ball where it’s supposed to be, and that’s all we can do,” Smith-Njigba said. “We have total confidence when we go out there. We’ve just got to stop beating ourselves, honestly.”
Smith-Njigba said Seattle must move forward and figure out what its problem is. He also said the problem is obvious.
“I don’t think it’s hard to see,” Smith-Njigba said. “Executing and home (in) on our assignments.”
If Smith has earned the benefit of the doubt, that cannot be applied to Seattle’s offensive line, which had a better day run blocking than in the past before getting stonewalled on a pair of short-yardage plays in overtime. But even on a good day, Ken Walker III went into overtime with 60 yards on 19 carries. He finished with 83 rushing yards, his second-highest total of the year, but on 3.3 yards per attempt. Seattle ranks 29th in success rate on running back carries.
Blocking aside, Williams continues to have issues snapping the ball, and the other members of the unit have consistently negated big plays with penalties and put the offense behind the sticks with false start flags. On Sunday Smith-Njigba had 78 yards receiving wiped out due to holding calls on right tackle Mike Jerrell, who was also flagged for a false start immediately after the second holding penalty.
Macdonald said assessing the offensive line will be a “big part” of Seattle’s evaluation process during the bye week.
“We’re not there yet by any stretch of the imagination,” said Macdonald, who later added: “It’s fair to say in all three phases it’s kind of all on the table right now of adjustments, things we need to move and shake.”
Smith is not excluded from that evaluation. But with only one reliable offensive lineman and an inconsistent supporting cast, it’s hard to say he’s the primary source of Seattle’s struggles through nine weeks.
(Photo: Rio Giancarlo / Getty Images)
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