Seattle’s LGBTQ community members say they hope that this Friday’s World Cup “Pride Match” between Egypt and Iran, two countries where homosexuality is criminalized, can be an opportunity to change minds.
Seattle, WA
Bump: Why Seattle Seahawks' Geno Smith can win a Super Bowl
When Geno Smith took over as the Seattle Seahawks’ starting quarterback in 2022, most viewed him as simply a stopgap between Russell Wilson and whoever the franchise would eventually draft or acquire as its QB of the future.
Over the past two-plus seasons, Smith has been busy rewriting the narrative.
Rost: Geno a trailblazer in the way QBs are now finding success
And after a scintillating start to 2024, former NFL wide receiver Michael Bumpus is sold: If surrounded with the right pieces, Smith is good enough to help a team win a Lombardi Trophy.
“If Geno continues to play like this and you surround him with a good defense, your offense keeps producing and your offensive line gets better, you can definitely win a Super Bowl with Geno as your quarterback,” Bumpus said Tuesday on Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy.
After spending most of his career as a backup, Smith compiled a breakout 2022 campaign that saw him lead the NFL in completion rate and earned him Comeback Player of the Year honors. He took a slight step back in 2023 – largely due to a porous offensive line – but still directed an NFL-best five game-winning drives and finished top-15 in both ESPN’s QBR metric and Pro Football Focus grading.
This year, the 33-year-old Smith has played like one of the league’s top quarterbacks. Through four weeks, he leads the NFL with 1,182 passing yards, ranks second with a 72.3% completion rate and has thrown for a league-high 57 first downs.
Smith directed another comeback win in Week 2 against the New England Patriots, completing 33 of 44 passes for 327 yards while overcoming pass-protection issues and a handful of drops from his receivers.
And in a shootout loss to the Detroit Lions on Monday night, he completed 38 of 56 passes for a career-high 395 yards, delivering a slew of key plays to help keep the short-handed Seahawks within striking distance until the final minutes. He also ran for 38 yards and finished with 433 yards of total offense, the sixth-most in franchise history.
Daniel Jeremiah: If Seahawks don’t pay Geno, another team will
“It’s not just about the percentage, the yards and the touchdowns,” Bumpus said. “It’s the moments. It’s the third-and-11 where you need a play. It’s the third-and-short where you’re sliding one in to a receiver sitting in a zone. It’s the dropping a dime on the sideline where only DK (Metcalf) can get it.
“It’s the leadership and it’s the precision in his passing in those big moments and how he does not look rattled,” he added. “… It’s the way that he’s doing it, with the pocket collapsing, him keeping his eyes down the field, rolling outside, throwing across his body. He’s in complete control at all times.”
Poised under pressure
Smith has once again been under frequent duress this season. Seattle ranks 28th in PFF’s pass block grading, which has resulted in him being pressured 69 times – the third-most of any quarterback in the league. That pressure has contributed to at least two of his four interceptions.
But time and time again, Smith has shown impressive poise while everything is crumbling around him.
That was particularly evident during a third-quarter touchdown drive Monday night.
Facing a third-and-8 at midfield, Smith looked like he was about to be sacked as a Detroit blitzer came racing in off the edge. But instead, Smith stepped up, ducked under the blitzer, spun out of the pocket and threw a dart with two defenders in his face for a drive-extending completion to Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Two plays later, Smith and the offense were backed into a second-and-16. With the pocket collapsing, he coolly stepped up and threw an off-balanced pass on the run to Tyler Lockett for a 29-yard gain.
“There was chaos going on around Geno,” Bumpus said. “… And Geno just stood tall. At no point did he look like he was flustered.
“The good quarterbacks operate well under pressure in dropback (situations),” he added. “They’re able to get back there, get to that back foot, (and when) nothing’s there and the pocket is collapsing, you roll outside, you make a play. You extend the plays. You make plays right. That’s what Geno did a bunch of times last night. He’s been doing it all year.”
But as Bumpus said, his view of Smith is based on far more than just a four-game sample size this season.
The stats and metrics would agree.
Since the start of 2022, Smith ranks second in fourth-quarter comebacks and game-winning drives, third in completion rate and fourth in passing yards. In ESPN’s QBR, he ranked seventh in 2022, 14th in 2023 and 10th this year. And in PFF grading, he ranked eighth in 2022, 13th in 2023 and 10th this season.
“It took me two seasons and some change for him to do enough to make me believe that this is possible,” Bumpus said. “Every single year he’s gotten better at something. Last year, he was (one of) the best in the game when it came to play-action. The year before, he took care of the football was the most accurate quarterback in the league. This year, he’s doing all that and more.”
Listen to the full conversations on Bump and Stacy at this link and this link or in the audio players within this story. Tune in to Bump and Stacy weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.
More on the Seattle Seahawks
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SEATTLE — Seattle police are investigating a shooting that left a 17-year-old boy injured early Thursday morning in the High Point neighborhood.
At about 12:48 a.m., dispatchers received multiple reports of rapid gunfire near Sylvan Way Southwest and Southwest Morgan Street.
Officers arrived and found a 17-year-old boy suffering from a gunshot wound to the hip area. Medics transported the teen to Harborview Medical Center in serious but stable condition.
Before officers located the victim, they found a car that had crashed and become disabled near Sylvan Way Southwest and Delridge Way Southwest. Police said multiple suspects were seen running from the vehicle through a nearby Home Depot parking lot.
Officers cordoned off the area and searched for the suspects with assistance from the K-9 Unit, but were unable to locate them. Police recovered the vehicle and impounded it for processing.
During the incident, gunfire struck at least three vehicles and two buildings. No other injuries were reported.
Officers processed multiple nearby scenes and recovered evidence before clearing the area. Detectives with the Gun Violence Reduction Unit will lead the investigation.
Seattle, WA
Council eyes street barricades in fight against violence, sex trafficking in north Seattle
SEATTLE — The Seattle City Council is expected to vote next week on a plan that would give the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) the authority to close off street access for public safety reasons.
The proposal comes after months of outcry from residents in north Seattle who say sex traffickers and sex buyers are looping through the streets surrounding Aurora Avenue North.
The street-closure proposal passed the council’s Public Safety Committee on Tuesday and is expected to be voted on by the full council next week.
“I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say the crime has gotten much worse, much more violent, and much more predator,” said District 5 councilmember Debora Juarez. “I think that we do have the authority to shut down a street for bullets flying and endangering the lives of those who live there.”
Frustrated neighbors have installed their own homemade barricades after a spate of gun violence between sex traffickers in May.
RELATED | SDOT removes street barricades near Aurora Ave; neighbors doubtful of temporary measures
Councilmember Bob Kettle says street closures will help tamp down sex buying in certain areas, but he emphasizes it must be accompanied by an increase in outreach and enforcement.
“We have to have a sustained effort,” Kettle told KOMO News. “My concern is for every action, there’s a reaction. We need to take this flex and then really attack it … because if we do just a bit and our attention wanders, we could have this conversation three months from now and we’re talking about the same thing.”
A 15-year-old boy was shot near 95th Street and Aurora Avenue North around 10:45 p.m. last night. The teen initially claimed he had been shot while walking down the street, but investigators now say he was shot by a passenger in his car.
RELATED | Seattle police say ‘drive-by’ on Aurora Ave. was actually passenger shooting teen driver
Kettle credited the city’s Real Time Crime Center cameras with helping investigators quickly piece together the events of the shooting.
“Just as important to finding out what happened, the cameras help police determine what did not happen,” Kettle said.
According to Seattle police data, reports of shootings and shots fired in the north precinct area are at their lowest levels since 2021.
Through the end of May, there were 48 total reports of shootings or shots fired, with one fatal shooting and seven nonfatal injury shootings.
That’s down from 63 total reports of shootings and shots fired – one fatal and seven injuries – in 2025; and 64 shootings or shots fired reports – one fatal and 17 injuries – in 2024.
At Tuesday’s committee meeting, councilmembers pointed out residents are calling for a new police precinct to be built on Aurora Avenue.
Ten years ago, a new North Precinct building was slated to be built at 130th Avenue and Aurora Avenue North to replace the existing precinct building, which was decades old and did not have enough space for the department’s needs.
Led by former councilmember Kshama Sawant, the “Block the Bunker” movement successfully got the North Precinct replacement project killed in city council.
Kettle said the city’s current financial issues make it essentially impossible to bring back a project similar to the one the previous council defeated.
“We have to connect the dots back,” Kettle said. “If we want to know why we are where we are today, we have to look at decisions made over the last two councils.”
Seattle, WA
Iran and Egypt to play in Seattle ‘Pride Match’ despite earlier complaints | The Jerusalem Post
Seattle revels in its reputation as a welcoming place and Pride flags are visible all over the city, all year round. Its June Pride weekend is one of the biggest in the United States.
So, ahead of December’s World Cup draw, it was only natural that local organizers designated the June 26 match to be held in the city as a “Pride Match.”
Then the draw happened — and the two teams scheduled to play the game were Egypt and Iran.
Egypt’s Football Association urged global soccer governing body FIFA to prevent any Pride-related activities, arguing such events clashed with the Muslim-majority country’s cultural and religious values. The governing body in Iran, where same-sex relations can carry the death penalty, filed an objection with FIFA.
Some in Seattle have doubts over the teams in the ‘Pride Match’
But in Seattle, there is no question that the Pride Match will go ahead as planned.
“The World Cup is going to come and go in three weeks,” Hedda McLendon, from Seattle’s local World Cup organizing committee, told Reuters. “The Pride celebration … has happened on this weekend for 50-plus years.
“It is going to happen this weekend, it is going to happen long after the World Cup.”
Some in the city’s LGBTQ community had mixed feelings given the participants, said Jon Cairns, 49, manager of local LGBTQ+ club Kremwerk.
Cairns, however, said his own view was that it provided a platform to promote acceptance that only the world’s biggest sporting event could offer.
“My reaction is let’s have them,” he told Reuters. “International sports is one of the biggest brokers historically of social change and individual rights and freedoms worldwide, including in the U.S.”
He cited black U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens’ four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany and Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ raised-fist protest in 1968 as moments where “only international sports could reach that big of an audience.”
“They’re not going to turn off the World Cup on state television in Iran or Egypt to block out a Pride flag in the audience,” Cairns said.
The Pride Match is “a host city initiative” and separate of FIFA, a spokesperson for soccer’s governing body told Reuters.
Seattle’s LGBTQ community sees an opportunity
Egypt and Iran’s involvement in the Pride Match is not the first time the World Cup has grappled with stark differences in attitudes between hosts and visitors.
In 2022 World Cup host Qatar, the emir said visitors should “respect our culture” when asked about gay people attending the tournament.
FIFA threatened yellow cards for captains wearing the “OneLove” armband, citing its rules against political slogans. Teams including England and the Netherlands that had been planning to wear the armbands to protest Qatar’s laws against same-sex relationships abandoned the plan.
For Ryan Webster, a 40-year-old lifestyle manager who was at Kremwerk the weekend before Pride, Seattle’s “Pride Match” was an opportunity to show solidarity with people in countries where their sexuality was outlawed.
“I’m choosing to believe that this is our moment to allow the members of the LGBTQ community that come from those countries to have the opportunity to celebrate themselves in totality that they might not have otherwise,” he said outside the club, which will host a watch party for Friday’s game.
Inside, ‘Venus Fengz’ lip-synced to Cher’s “Believe” before introducing fellow drag performers to the stage, clapped and cheered by a raucous crowd.
Fengz, who only wanted to provide their stage name, said Pride coinciding with the World Cup would bring increased visibility, anticipating perhaps some new audience members.
“I think it’s always great for us to be able to share space and share places with people who don’t have the same experiences as us,” they told Reuters.
“Sometimes you just have to be the bigger person and show grace where you can and know that everyone is a human learning (from) different experiences, but also it can get hard — because you’re on the shorter end of the stick, always trying to have to explain yourself around people who don’t grow up with the same worldview.”
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