-
Brady HendersonESPN
Pro Bowl quarterback Geno Smith told SiriusXM NFL Radio on Friday that contract talks with the Seattle Seahawks are underway and the prospects of the two sides reaching a deal are “looking very good.”
Smith, 32, is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent in March.
“We’ve had talks and we’re in the process of getting all that settled right now,” Smith said from the Pro Bowl in Las Vegas in an interview that aired Friday afternoon. “It’s looking very good. We think we can get some things done, but obviously those things take time. This is the process that I hate about the NFL because I just want to play football, but it’s a business as well, so we’ve got to take care of business and then we’ll get back to the football.”
Smith was one of the biggest surprises of the 2022 NFL season. A backup for most of the past seven years, he won the Seahawks’ starting job following the Russell Wilson trade and delivered a Pro Bowl season, leading the league in completion percentage, finishing sixth in Total QBR and breaking several of Wilson’s single-season franchise records.
The one-year deal he signed last April included a base value of $3.5 million. Smith made another $3.5 million incentives.
Coach Pete Carroll said multiple times he hopes the Seahawks can bring back Smith, though he stopped short of declaring it would happen, even though Seattle could assure that outcome via the franchise tag in the absence of a multiyear deal. More recently, Seahawks general manager John Schneider told Seattle’s Sports Radio 93.3 KJR-FM that he thinks they’ll re-sign Smith.
Smith’s contract also came up during his appearance on The Pivot Podcast, which was published to YouTube on Friday. Smith declined to specify the size of the contract he’s seeking but said he “would love to be in Seattle” and expressed confidence that he’ll be back.
“I love Seattle,” Smith said. “We have a great relationship and I think we’ll work things out. When it comes to contracts, I think every player just wants to get paid his worth. And it’s funny because a great friend of mine tells me, no matter what check they write, it’ll never be your worth because your worth isn’t in money, it isn’t in monetary things. So you just want to be respected. Your contract just wants to say, we respect you, we understand what you bring to the table, we understand what caliber of player you are, and we appreciate you. That’s really all it comes down to.”
