NFL analyst's interesting comp for Seattle Seahawks' Geno Smith

NFL analyst’s interesting comp for Seattle Seahawks’ Geno Smith

Posted by Admin October 31, 2024 NFL

Since taking over as the Seattle Seahawks’ starting quarterback in 2022, Geno Smith has experienced a career resurgence.

Is Seahawks’ run defense or rushing attack a quicker fix?

Smith has been a Pro Bowler each of the past two years and has performed at an above-average level over that span, highlighted by some stretches of great play. But despite that, there’s still a wide range of perceptions about where the 34-year-old veteran stands in the NFL quarterback hierarchy.

That’s particularly the case this year. Smith has thrown for a league-high 274.6 passing yards per game and ranks seventh with a 68.8% completion rate. But he also has just eight touchdown passes in eight games and has thrown seven interceptions, which is tied for the sixth-most in the league. He ranks 14th in ESPN’s QBR metric, which is only slightly above average.

FTN Fantasy’s Aaron Schatz, who writes for ESPN.com and founded the website Football Outsiders, was asked for his take on Smith during an appearance Wednesday on Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy.

Schatz responded with an interesting QB comparison for Smith: 36-year-old veteran and four-time Pro Bowler Kirk Cousins, who is in his first season with Atlanta after spending the previous 12 with Washington and Minnesota.

“I think Geno is good, but he’s not great and he’s never going to be great,” Schatz said. “But he’s good. I mean, he’s an above-average quarterback. It’s interesting, I think with Geno you get a Kirk Cousins level of play, but in a very different way. He has more athletic gifts and so the highs are higher, but the mistakes are more often. But you end up with that level of play that’s like the 11th-best quarterback in the league.”

Schatz’s comparison is pretty spot-on over the past three seasons.

Since the start of 2022, Smith has a 67.7% completion rate, 252.6 passing yards per game, 58 touchdown passes and 27 interceptions. Cousins, meanwhile, has a 67.3% completion rate, 272.2 passing yards per game, 61 TD passes and 26 interceptions.

The one significant difference is Smith’s ability to use his legs. Smith has 698 rushing yards over the past three seasons, while Cousins has just 130. That’s likely why Smith has a 62.8 QBR over that span, compared to Cousins’ 52.3 mark.

Even so, Smith and Cousins are pretty similar when looking at where they rank in QBR since they became full-time starters. Since Smith took over as Seattle’s starter in 2022, he has ranked seventh, 14th and 14th in QBR – an average ranking of 11.7. And over the 10 seasons since Cousins won the starting job in Washington in 2015, he has an average QBR ranking of 12.9.

Can a quarterback of that caliber win a Super Bowl?

“If you’ve got a strong defense and good receivers, you can win with that, absolutely,” Schatz said. “But I don’t think Geno’s necessarily a guy who carries you to the promised land on his own.”

Listen to ESPN.com writer Aaron Schatz at this link or in the audio player near the middle of 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.