'Not a One Off:' Mina Kimes Optimistic About Seahawks QB Geno Smith's Future Prospects
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On the heels of a stunning breakthrough season orchestrating the Seattle Seahawks offense as the heir apparent to Russell Wilson and subsequently signing a three-year contract extension, Geno Smith still has plenty of detractors not ready to anoint him as a top-10 quarterback.
Despite finishing among league leaders in nearly every notable category on his way to the Comeback Player of the Year award, including completing an NFL-best 69.8 percent of his passes and finishing fourth with 30 touchdown passes, NBC Sports analyst Chris Simms still ranked him 15th on his latest rankings. Wilson somehow ranked 14th on the same list coming off the worst season of his career, while Titans starter Ryan Tannehill and Lions starter Jared Goff were just behind him.
Smith also checked in at No. 14 on another set of rankings courtesy of CBS Sports, with Brock Purdy of the 49ers and Goff both ahead of him, with writer Cody Benjamin casting the tired question of whether the 32-year-old veteran could replicate his unexpected 2022 play or would return to his prior form as what he called "a turnover-friendly career backup."
But while some analysts may have doubts about Smith's ability to continue playing at a Pro Bowl level for Seattle, ESPN NFL Live analyst Mina Kimes views his future a bit more favorably.
Joining the Locked On Seahawks podcast for a recent episode, while citing her own three-year quarterback rankings on The Mina Kimes Show with Lenny, Kimes placed Smith just inside her top-10, something nobody could have foreseen this time a year ago when he was battling Drew Lock for the starting job.
"If you could go back two years and say of all the quarterbacks in the NFL, if you're going to be drafting and picking a guy that you want starting for your team for the next three years, I don't think anybody would have thought you'd be taking Geno Smith there," Kimes remarked.
Though some may look at Smith's success last season as a flash in the pan situation, Kimes pointed out his unique path to a breakout season in Seattle as a reason to buy into him replicating such production in future years.
Starting off his NFL career as a starter with the Jets, Smith suffered a broken jaw when a teammate punched him in the locker room during training camp in 2015. He never won his starting job back from veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick and after leaving in free agency, he spent five seasons with the Giants, Chargers, and Seahawks as a backup, only seeing a handful of snaps behind Wilson, Philip Rivers, and Eli Manning during that span.
As has been well-documented to this point, Smith struggled in two seasons as a starter in New York before falling into backup purgatory. In 29 starts, he completed less than 60 percent of his passes and threw 34 interceptions compared to just 25 touchdowns, failing to emerge as a franchise quarterback.
But Smith was only 25 years old when the unfortunate locker room fight took place and the Jets didn't do an adequate job putting talent around him to give him a chance to truly succeed. Over the next seven seasons, he barely saw the field, preventing him from showing what he could do under better circumstances with a better supporting cast at his disposal.
"Part of the reason why I think Geno's performance is not a one off and that regression isn't, or at least dramatic regression, doesn't loom is that this is a guy who really didn't get a chance for many years," Kimes said. "His career arc in the NFL was very unusual. So it wasn't like he was terrible for five years and suddenly had this big breakout. He literally did not play for many years, or just in spots starts here and there, which suggests that he wasn't given an opportunity."
Once Smith was finally given a legitimate chance to become a starter again, he seized the opportunity, impressing throughout Seattle's offseason program last spring and building a comfortable lead over Lock in the race to replace Wilson. After the team cut him loose in Week 3, he carved up defenses with precise passing and a lethal deep ball throwing to DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, finishing the season with 12 games throwing at least two touchdown passes, tying MVP Patrick Mahomes for the most in the NFL.
Among several reasons why Kimes doesn't expect Smith's play to fall off a cliff, the veteran excelled throwing from a clean pocket. According to Pro Football Focus, he ranked second in completion rate (74.6 percent), third in touchdown passes (25), fifth in yards per attempt (7.8), and fifth in big time throws from a clean pocket, numbers that typically allow for sustained success over multiple seasons.
"He played in a way that I think usually bodes well for the future, which is he was very good inside a clean pocket, which tends to be a stable statistic year to year," Kimes assessed. "He was an assassin from the pocket... I had always thought Geno had a good arm dating back to college [at West Virginia]. He was accurate."
Further benefiting Smith, the Seahawks invested a first-round pick in savvy slot receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, providing him with a perfect complementary target to pair with the explosive duo of Metcalf and Lockett. His ability to thrive in the middle of the field and create after the catch should open things up for the rest of the offense and fit in nicely with the quarterback's strengths as a pocket passer.
But while Kimes wasn't surprised to see Smith excel at getting the football to his receivers from the pocket when he wasn't facing pressure, she didn't expect him to show off dynamic playmaking skills when the pocket broke down and he was forced to improvise.
Excelling as a runner for the Seahawks, Smith rushed for 394 yards and averaged 5.5 yards per carry last season, demonstrating the ability to create with his legs when necessary. His underrated athleticism also allowed him to escape the pocket and extend plays in Wilson-esque ways at times, a characteristic that Kimes believes pushes him out of the crowded realm of game managers in the NFL to a quarterback who can shoulder the load and carry his team to victory.
For that reason, coupled with his accuracy from the pocket and the added weaponry to an already talented offensive arsenal, Kimes not only anticipates Smith will continue playing at a high level, but sees the qualities of a quarterback who still may have his best ball ahead of him in Seattle and could make his new contract look like a bargain.
"I think what surprised me the most was the playmaking, some of what he did outside of structure, throwing on the move, the creativity he displayed," she said. "Those were qualities that I didn't know he had as a quarterback. And so I think he is actually in that range where he's not one of the many quarterbacks in the NFL you win with but he can actually elevate the offense around him, which is pretty cool."
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