RENTON — During his final meetings with the media Monday before heading out into the offseason, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made clear that the team considers Geno Smith as its quarterback of the future and has begun the work to assure he will remain in Seattle.
On his final radio show on the year on Seattle Sports 710 Monday morning, Carroll said the team had begun preliminary talks with Smith, who can be a free agent on March 15.
And during his season-ending news conference a little later, he reiterated that Smith proved all the team needed to see to know he can take the Seahawks where they want to go.
“He had an excellent game for us in that game,” Carroll said of Smith’s play in Saturday’s 41-23 loss to the 49ers in a wild-card playoff game in which he had a costly fumble in the third quarter that helped turn the game but also completed 25 of 35 passes for 253 yards and two touchdowns.
“And even though the turnovers happened — they happened — he played really well just to show you again that he’s on it and we got our guy. We need to hopefully work things out so he’s with us and all that. There’s business to be done there, of course. But there’s really no lid to what we can do. The sky’s the limit. That, along with returning him with his leadership factor that he had, he’s a big deal to us, and I just couldn’t be more tickled by the way the whole thing turned out and how he handled it. And really as we look to the future, he’s a big part of why we look to the future more promisingly.”
Smith, likewise, expressed optimism after Saturday’s game that he will re-sign with the Seahawks, going as far as to say, “I want to finish my career in Seattle.”
But now comes the task of getting that done.
Teams can talk to their own pending free agents whenever they want so theoretically a deal could happen at any time.
But one date to watch is Feb. 21, when a 15-day window opens when teams can place franchise or transition tags on pending free agents.. The window closes March 7. There has been speculation the Seahawks could consider using a nonexclusive franchise tag on Smith.
With the tag, Smith would get a one-year deal that would guarantee him what is currently projected to be a $32.4 million salary in 2023. That number can change based on the final salary cap number.
Being given the tag would allow Smith to talk to other teams. If he signed an offer sheet elsewhere, Seattle would have five days to match or get two first-round picks as compensation if the offer were not matched.
Because a team is unlikely to give up two picks and sign Smith to the kind of long-term deal Seattle wouldn’t want to match, the tag would most logically tie Smith to the Seahawks for 2023.
Neither side would view the tag as the optimum result. It would be a huge hit on Seattle’s salary cap, and Smith undoubtedly wants as much long-term security as possible.
But it would, at the least, allow the two sides to continue negotiating, as was the case when Seattle last used the tag in 2019 on defensive lineman Frank Clark, with the Seahawks eventually deciding to trade Clark to Kansas City instead.
Teams can continue to negotiate long-term deals with tagged players until July 15.
Smith played this season on a one-year deal with a base salary of $3.5 million. But he also made another $3.5 million in incentives. The 2022 season marked the seventh straight year Smith had signed a one-year deal.
But now 32, Smith will undoubtedly hope to secure his future with a deal that will not only be substantially more than any he has had in his career, but also dwarf the $17.5 million he has made in his 10-year career.
And while the tag option is there for Seattle to be patient into the summer if it wants, the Seahawks are also sure to want to secure Smith’s future before the draft is held April 27-29. Seattle holds the No. 5 overall pick thanks to the Russell Wilson trade.
When the Wilson trade was made, there was ample speculation the Seahawks would target a quarterback at the top of the draft if possible. But the emergence of Smith means the Seahawks may now look elsewhere, something Carroll acknowledged.
“Well, yeah, if we didn’t have a quarterback that functioned really well, we might be a little different,” Carroll said when asked if Smith’s presence changes what their approach to the draft might have been otherwise. “But the quarterbacks in this draft are extraordinary players and you don’t get opportunities like this and so we have to be — we are — really tuned in to all of those options.”
Also potentially impacting how avidly Seattle might pursue a quarterback in the draft — and at that moment, the Seahawks are projected to have four of the top 53 picks, by having Denver’s and their own in each of the first two rounds — is the future of Drew Lock.
Lock, who turned 26 in November, was acquired from the Broncos in the Wilson deal. After losing a training camp battle to Smith for the starting job, he ended up not playing a snap in the regular season as Smith was the only quarterback in the NFL to play every down for his team this season.
Lock is also an unrestricted free agent after completing his four-year rookie deal in which he made just over $7 million, including $1.35 million from Seattle this year.
But Carroll said the Seahawks hope to bring back Lock.
“Drew was as positive as you can hope a guy to be that didn’t get a chance to play,” Carroll said. “He had a really good experience. He worked great with the coaches. We really appreciated his talent and his work ethic and even more so his mentality and support of Geno — he and Geno were buddies through the whole thing and they helped each other. (Practice squad QB) Sean Mannion was part of that, as well. But he (Lock) doesn’t know what’s coming up — got to wait and see. But we’d love to have him back and keep going.”
For now, the negotiating between team and player — and the waiting game for fans — begins in earnest.