With two games of Geno Smith in the past and another matchup looming against Atlanta, are the Seahawks willing to dig into their quarterback room earlier than we expected?
We have seen a tale of two Geno Smiths so far this season. In Week One, we saw an expanded playbook, creative tight end usage and a strong primetime performance from the Hawks. However, in Week Two we saw a regression from Geno back to the performances we expected from him.
I at least partially attribute Geno’s performance to why we have seen DK Metcalf struggling the past two weeks and Tyler Lockett struggling in Week One. We were so quick to anoint Smith as a “guy”, but we have seen back-to-back games with under 200 yards passing. That doesn’t win football games in the NFL in 2022.
At what point will we potentially see Drew Lock play? I have a few scenarios where that may come to fruition:
Potential Scenarios Where Seahawks Bench Geno Smith
A loss to an underwhelming Atlanta team
Seattle has an ugly past with losing to teams that are at the bottom of the NFL. Being from Seattle and a Seahawks fan my whole life, I can’t tell you how many times Seattle’s defense has the innate ability to make any average or backup quarterback on a bad team look like Tom Brady. In this matchup, Geno has to show that he can bounce back from an ugly divisional loss and take care of business against a struggling Atlanta team.
Another game with less than 200 yards passing
This should be a baseline for judging Geno’s performance. Obviously, passing yards alone don’t tell a full story and are pretty rudimentary when evaluating quarterback play. However, he never seems to have passing performances that we see from other starting quarterbacks. Smith’s stat lines often represent what we expect from a backup quarterback as opposed to a starter in the NFL.
Multiple turnovers or losing to Atlanta early in the game
If we see Geno throw a few interceptions early or not protect the football, Drew Lock could make an early entrance to the season. If Atlanta gets off to a fast start and is up multiple scores early, it would be smart to give Lock some playing time.
Summary
We may have been to quick to judge Geno Smith after Week One. And we may be too quick to judge Geno Smith after last week. Vegas and confidence in the Seahawks team has been drastically lowered after last week, amounting to Seahawks being favored only -1 in their matchup against the Falcons. Ultimately, a larger sample size is needed to properly rate Geno Smith and this 2022 Seattle Seahawks squad.
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