RENTON — In a game that will go a long way toward determining the success or failure of their present — and shape their futures — Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith and coach Pete Carroll will each have to slay a bit of their past.
“Kind of an old acquaintance coming in,” was the way Carroll put it this week of Sunday’s visit to Lumen Field by the New York Jets, a contest that is pretty much make-or-break for Seattle’s playoff hopes.
New York was where Smith’s NFL career began after he was drafted by the Jets with the 39th overall pick in 2013, leading to a two-year stint as a starter that ended in controversy and led to a seven-season stint as a backup before reviving his career this season with the Seahawks.
And New York was where Carroll got his first job as a head coach at any level in 1994, named to take over for Bruce Coslet, a fellow University of the Pacific grad for whom he had served as defensive coordinator the previous four years.
Following a 6-10 season in which the Jets lost their final five games, Carroll was surprisingly fired, a decision that left the then 43-year-old Carroll stunned and facing his own uncertain future.
“Really, we are kind of going as partners in crime, that we were both there,” Carroll said this week, referring to Smith. “It didn’t quite work out right at the end, so we are just sharing the experience a little bit.”
That each has now found success elsewhere — with Carroll famously getting his Super Bowl title with the Seahawks on the same MetLife turf he had coached the Jets — maybe helps mitigate any bitterness. And obviously in Carroll’s case, as he said this week, “it was such a long time ago that it’s not a factor.”
For Smith, the experience is fresher. He immediately became the starter as a rookie in 2013 and held the job through 2014.
Ryan Fitzpatrick was brought in the next year to compete with Smith as Todd Bowles took over as coach for Rex Ryan. But the competition never really went anywhere as Smith suffered a broken jaw when he was punched in the locker room by teammate IK Enemkpali over what was reported to be a dispute over $600 — in announcing the injury, Bowles said Smith had been “sucker punched.”
By the time Smith was healthy in late September, Fitzpatrick was rolling and Bowles decided to keep him as the starter as the Jets went 10-6 — their last winning season.
Smith started only five games the next seven years before earning the starting job with Seattle this year.
But during his weekly news conference Thursday, Smith preferred to focus on the positives of his Jets’ experience and what happened later.
“My time there, I really appreciated it,” he said. “It helped me grow as a man, it was a good time for me. It was a time for me to learn and grow in the league, and it was good.
“ … Obviously, it was a freak accident. Things happen, and you don’t wish that on anybody. But it was an incredible moment for me to learn and practice resilience and patience. It took a lot of patience, and it took a lot of hard work to even have an opportunity to compete again as a starter after all of that stuff happened. I was appreciative of all of the things that I went through and then obviously, I was able to turn it around and make it a positive.”
The biggest lesson, he said, might have been learning how to roll with what happens in a league of unpredictability. Quickly adjusting to his new role as a backup allowed Smith to hang around long enough to eventually come out the other side.
“That kind of became my career for a while, being a great teammate, trying to help guys get better, and do whatever it took to help the team win outside of playing,” Smith said. “Just in that time frame and when I was going through that, I really had time to reflect. It was the first time that I hadn’t played or started since maybe 10 years old. I’ve been playing football for a long time, started many seasons, and then boom, something happens where now you have to sit. What’s different was challenging but also taught me a lot and helped me grow.”
So, too, did Carroll following a dismissal in New York that he said at the time left him blindsided.
The move was said to have been made solely by owner Leon Hess, who was disheartened by the five-game losing streak to end the season and wanted to hire Rich Kotite, a former longtime Jets assistant who had just been fired by the Eagles. The move didn’t work as the Jets went 4-28 in Kotite’s two years.
For Carroll, two years as a defensive coordinator with the 49ers after being fired by the Jets helped revive his career and led to a three-year stint as coach of the Patriots. That, too, ended in a firing. But he’d at least gotten three years, and a tenure that led to lots of valuable lessons — namely, to do things his way if he ever got another head coaching job and make sure he essentially had final say over any personnel moves — that he took with him to USC in 2001, where his head coaching career finally began to thrive.
“It was a great experience,” Carroll said of his time with the Jets. “To coach in New York is really something. It’s hard to imagine what it’s like when you drive back from the Meadowlands back in the day to Long Island, and you drive through all of those people. As we would go through the parkway going back and all of the lights that were on in all of those tall buildings knowing they just watched the Giants and the Jets play football and they were happy or pissed off one way or the other. It represented something really unique. I have never forgotten that and regard that really highly. It was really fun.”
For each, though, the Jets now represent the opportunity to fully make the most of a season that began with such promise but has been waylaid by five losses in the last six games to potentially take Seattle out of the playoffs.
Regardless of what happens, Smith, who can be a free agent at the end of the year, has assured himself another shot as a starter, most likely in Seattle, but undoubtedly somewhere.
And for Carroll, the 6-3 start seemed to show that at age 71, there was still a lot of coaching left to be done. But two more wins and a playoff berth would assuredly stamp this as one of the best coaching jobs of his career.
“For me and this team, it’s business as usual,” Smith said. “Another week to prepare and a tough challenge for us to go out there and try to get this win. We need it.”