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Brady Henderson, ESPN
SEATTLE — The Seahawks have a new head coach in Mike Macdonald, who replaces Pete Carroll after 14 seasons at the helm. They have a new decision-maker in John Schneider, their longtime general manager who now holds final say over personnel matters in the organization’s post-Carroll power structure.
Could that combination also mean a new quarterback in 2024?
That question comes to the forefront this week with an important date in Geno Smith‘s contract approaching. If he’s still on the roster by Friday, then his $12.7 million base salary for next season — part of the $22.5 million he’s set to make in 2024 — becomes fully guaranteed.
Keeping Smith past that trigger date wouldn’t necessarily lock him onto the roster for another year, but if Schneider and Macdonald were intent on going in a different direction at quarterback, then cutting Smith by Friday would be the simplest way to move on.
Schneider can turn his focus to that decision now that he and Macdonald have filled the top four spots on the coach’s staff. Having already hired Jay Harbaugh to coordinate their special teams and Leslie Frazier to serve as assistant head coach, the Seahawks tabbed Aden Durde to coordinate their defense and Ryan Grubb to run the offense.
Grubb orchestrated pass-heavy attacks in his two seasons at Washington (15th in the FBS in dropback rate over 2022-23) and in his three years as Fresno State’s offensive coordinator before that (17th from 2019 to 2021), but the defensive-minded Macdonald will want him to lean more on the run game with the Seahawks.
“Ryan’s an O-line guy at heart and I really respect that about him and there’s a lot of great playcallers in this league that really have a core identity through the offensive line,” Macdonald told Seattle Sports 710-AM on Monday.
“You look at their run numbers, they’re also very efficient running the football, and so that’s definitely going to be one of our core identities is being able to run the ball and have multiple runs, have different ways to attack offenses through the run game and those are conversations that him and I have had. And as we build this thing out, I’m sure that it’ll look a little different than it did at Washington, but … a lot of the motions, the pre-snap shifts, that gives defenses fits and it gives quarterbacks answers.”
Offensive coordinator was always going to be the most important hire on Seattle’s staff. Whereas Macdonald plans to call defensive plays and will likely import much of the scheme he developed with the Baltimore Ravens, the new offensive coordinator will be tasked with calling plays on offense, building what may be a mostly-fresh system around his quarterback and potentially grooming a new one, depending on the decision the Seahawks make with Smith.
Picking Grubb as offensive coordinator adds another layer to that conversation, considering his connection to former Huskies quarterback Michael Penix Jr., who’s projected to be taken in the first two rounds of the draft and may be available to the Seahawks with the 16th overall pick, if not later. But Smith’s future was already a well-established question given the absence of any fully guaranteed money in his contract for 2024, his up-and-down 2023 season and the fact that Carroll — perhaps Smith’s biggest supporter in the organization — is no longer there calling the shots.
That power now belongs to Schneider, and nothing that he or Macdonald have said about Seattle’s quarterback situation would qualify as anything close to assurance that Smith will definitely be back. Smith is coming off an eventful season in which he routinely came through in the clutch, missed two full games (plus parts of two others) with injuries and threw 10 fewer touchdown passes than in 2022.
“I think Geno had a good season,” Schneider said last month. “It was a little bit opposite of last year. He started out real strong last year and things dipped a little bit the second half. And then I thought this year he started out not quite as strong as last year and then finished in a real strong manner.”
Macdonald was noncommittal in his introductory news conference, alluding to the uncertainty of Seattle’s quarterback situation and making mention of Drew Lock, who has backed up Smith the past two seasons and is scheduled to be a free agent again in March.
“We’ve played against Geno,” Macdonald said in early February. “He’s a really good player; I’m pretty sure he’s at the Pro Bowl right now. But we’re going to build it around the quarterback. … So we’ll see how the whole situation shakes out over time, but excited to get to meet those guys: Drew, I talked to Geno briefly after our game and told him how much I respect him — not anticipating I’d see him in six months or three months or however long it’s been.”
Schneider has long been a believer in Lock’s potential, which was one of the main reasons he wanted to trade Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos in particular. With Schneider now possessing full control over personnel decisions, it may not be a coincidence that Macdonald continues to mention Lock as part of Seattle’s quarterback mix — even though he’s not under contract for 2024.
When asked this week during his radio appearance about his early conversations with Seahawks players, Macdonald said “Drew and Geno have been the main guys we’ve talked to [so far].”
After going 1-1 in two fill-in starts, the 27-year-old Lock would likely be in line for a raise from the one-year, $4 million deal he signed last offseason to return as Smith’s backup, though he would still command significantly less than what the Seahawks are set to pay Smith. The 33-year-old Smith has two years and $47.5 million remaining on his contract. The $22.5 million he’s scheduled to make in 2024 consists of the $12.7 million base salary, a $9.6 million roster bonus due on March 18 and a $200,000 workout bonus. He’s set to count for $31.2 million against the cap.
Cutting Smith before his base salary becomes fully guaranteed on Friday would result in a cash savings of $22.5 million for 2024, a cap savings of $13.8 million and $17.4 million in dead money that the Seahawks would have to eat next season before his contract is wiped from their books in 2025.
If they were to move on from Smith this offseason, another option would be keeping him past Feb. 16 and buying time to try to find a trade partner. Any team that trades for Smith would inherit his $12.7 million base salary, and if the deal happened before March 18, the new team would also be on the hook for the $9.6 million roster bonus (as well as the $200,000 workout bonus). Trading Smith before March 18 (trades can’t become official until the new league year begins March 13) would carry the same cap ramifications for the Seahawks as cutting him before Friday, with the obvious benefit of getting a draft pick or something else in return.
While Smith may not be able to command more than a Day 3 pick in a trade given his high base salary for 2024, that return could conceivably improve if the Seahawks were willing to pay some of the $9.6 million roster bonus. That would be akin to the Seahawks, at last year’s trade deadline, upping their return package for Leonard Williams to include a second-round pick in exchange for the New York Giants agreeing to pay most of his remaining base salary.
Smith’s contract contains offsets, according to a league source who reviewed the deal, which may bring another option into play: keeping him past Friday then cutting him before March 18 if no trade partner materializes. Depending on the exact offset language and the next deal he signs, the Seahawks could potentially be absolved from some or all of the $12.7 million guarantee, though they wouldn’t receive any cap credits until the season.
Yet another option would be cutting Smith before Friday, letting him test free agency and re-signing him at a reduced rate, assuming his market is something significantly less than $22.5 million on a one-year deal. And, of course, the Seahawks could simply keep Smith, see if the combination of Grubb’s system plus an improved offensive line can coax more consistent play out of him in 2024 and then revisit the quarterback question next offseason. According to Spotrac, the $22.5 million Smith is set to make in 2024 ranks 18th among all quarterbacks, making that a reasonable price tag and potentially even a relative bargain for a player who has finished seventh and 14th in Total QBR the past two seasons.
Smith remains one of the NFL’s most accurate quarterbacks and owns the fourth-best QBR off play-action over the past two seasons, a skill that could play well in a run-based attack.
“We want to be able to possess the ball,” Macdonald said in his radio appearance. “We want to obviously be explosive and not turn the ball over, and I think that’s going to come through run and play-action on early downs. And then when we are forced to drop back in those situations, having a consistency in the quarterback’s reads so he can play fast and be divisive when we have to drop back and throw the ball.”
The Seahawks are projected to be around $5 million over the 2024 spending limit, according to OverTheCap. But they could ease that financial crunch without moving on from Smith, with several other players set to carry on bloated cap numbers that could be reduced either via restructures or cuts — Jamal Adams ($26.9M), Tyler Lockett ($26.9M), Quandre Diggs ($21.3M), Dre’Mont Jones ($18.2M), Will Dissly ($10.1M) and Bryan Mone ($5.9M) to name a few.
Friday is also a significant day for Jones, with $7 million of his $11 million base salary for 2024 set to become fully guaranteed provided he’s still on the roster.
During his radio appearance, Macdonald was asked how much turnover he expects before the start of the season.
“I don’t know if I can answer that,” he said. “That’s something that John and I, we’re working through and I know there’s some decisions that we’ve got to make here pretty soon, but I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m not going in with the mentality of, hey, let’s flip this whole thing over. I don’t think that’s the mentality. It’s more of an open mind. What’s best for the team, obviously John’s handling it on the personnel side. But we’ll be a tag-team through that whole process.”
