Former Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith is likely simply costing people jobs at this point. The redemption project has turned sour and is playing horribly with his new team, the Las Vegas Raiders. Even worse, his play is affecting former Seattle head coach Pete Carroll.
12s likely still have some adoration for Carroll. He brought a lot of positive energy over his 14 years with the Seahawks, and he led the team to its only Super Bowl victory. Was he perfect? No, because no one is. But he was seemingly a good guy, and people wanted good things to happen to him.
With Geno Smith, Seahawks fans are much more conflicted. He was volatile on the field at times, tossed too many interceptions at the worst times, and was seemingly happy to be traded from Seattle. Carroll didn't want to go.
Former Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll is saying all the wrong things
But Smith and Carroll are linked again, of course, because Smith was traded to the Raiders this past offseason. So far, through five games, he has tossed a league-leading nine interceptions and is 29th in QBR. Las Vegas is 1-4, and a bunch of blame for that goes to Smith.
But as 12s all know, Pete Carroll is loyal to a fault. He likes to stick with players he trusts, even when he shouldn't. This occurs overall, but specifically in games, too. Case in point, the Indianapolis Colts were destroying the Raiders in Week 5, and leading by 37 in the second half. Still, Carroll kept Smith and other starters in the game.
He doubled down on the error in his postgame remarks. He admitted he thought about changing to backup quarterback Kenny Pickett, but thought the starters needed more reps.
Carroll told the media, "I was thinking that there was a reason to do that, but here's the reason why I didn't do that: We need to stay out there and keep practicing. We need to keep practicing, we need the reps, we need the turns, we need to run the system, we need to feel it, we need to see the guys get their opportunities to improve. It's not like a big change...We need to get better and to get right."
That, of course, is not great coach-speak. If players don't know the season after an entire training camp, preseason, and then five games of a season, that is more an indictment on the coaches, not the players. The truth is that the players likely do know the system, but aren't executing it well enough. This is especially true for Geno Smith.
Unfortunately, expecting Smith to suddenly be a different quarterback than he has been in the last two seasons (and he leads the NFL in interceptions since the beginning of 2024) is probably a false hope. Smith might need to be benched for the betterment of the Raiders' offense.
That won't happen with Pete Carroll as his head coach. Carroll is too loyal to Smith, but Smith is probably setting himself up for a fall and taking former Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete down with him.