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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.
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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.
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“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.
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