The difference in Geno Smith this year. And the lesson he’s taught all Seahawks

Among many out-of-nowhere facts about, well, out-of-nowhere Geno Smith: He was an English major in college.
It’s been more than a decade now since the Seahawks quarterback who surprised the league in 2022 with a Pro Bowl season after seven years on NFL benches was studying in college. That was while he was starring at West Virginia through 2011.
Why English?
“I love to read and love to write,” he said after Seattle’s wet practice Tuesday.
What’s Smith reading right now?
“Defenses,” he said.
The difference in Geno Smith
The difference between the 2022 Geno and the 2023 Smith?
He’s settled now.
“There really is a quality coming back. His seriousness about taking advantage of all the steps along the way to get prepared and to be right,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “He knows how he needs to connect with his teammates and players that he’s going to go to.”
Teammates and coaches have noticed this summer Smith being more forceful and obvious as a team leader.
Turns out, leading the NFL in completion percentage, the first Pro Bowl season of his career, his first postseason start in January, then a new $105 million, three-year contract does wonders for one’s leadership cache.
Top receiver DK Metcalf said this summer “I overstepped some boundaries” in being too vocal on the field and in the Seahawks’ locker room last season. He yielding that role to Smith this season.
“That’s Geno’s role, to be a vocal leader,” Metcalf said in June. “He’s the quarterback. He’s the one calling the plays. He’s the one saying ‘Hut!’”
Smith had Metcalf down in Los Angeles with him this offseason for private workouts at UCLA.
It’s a lot easier and more appropriate to do that when you are the undisputed starting quarterback versus battling for the job entering a training camp.
In passing, in command of the offense, in reading and reacting to defenses — and particularly in connecting with his teammates — his coach thinks Smith is in his prime entering his 11th NFL season.
“His relationships he’s worked on with DK and Tyler (Lockett) and all the fellas, he’s just right in the heart of his time,” Carroll said. “He knows it., and nothing is going to catch him by surprise.
“And he’s worked his butt off, but he’s still lean and mean right now, and he looks great so, he’s just going to capture this moment and what it feels like.”
That “lean” Smith said he’s never worked harder than he did this offseason, coming off his 4,282-yard passing season with 30 touchdowns against 11 interceptions and that 69.8% completion rate. He set four Seahawks records for single-season passing, breaking three of Wilson’s.
He’s a pescatarian now, having stopped eating red meat and chicken this offseason.
“I still feel I’m like 21, somewhere around there,” he said.
“But the importance is the mentality. It really is. It comes down to your mental makeup, your mentality, how you go about every single day.
“I wake up and it’s still a dream to me that I get to do this for a living. I’m very appreciative of that and I look forward to just coming to work and being with the guys.”
Geno Smith’s lessons
Such self-assuredness and single-mindedness to improve is why the Seahawks believe the 32-year-old Smith is far ahead of where he was this time last year.
This time last year, he was fighting for and winning the job over Drew Lock to replace traded Russell Wilson as Seattle’s starter. Smith won the job after seven seasons spent on the benches of four teams, including the most recent three years backing up Wilson in Seattle — and almost never playing.
“Geno really taught us something,” Carroll said.
“A little side-bar here in that we’ve learned from him the mentality that it takes to be in that situation where you’re backing up, but be on the ready. We would give him credit for doing that for four years straight.
“Then when he finally got his chance, he kicked butt.
“That’s Geno prep. That’s G prep, what we’re talking about.”
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith and head coach Pete Carroll shake hands during a game against the Las Vegas Raiders on Nov. 27, 2022, in Seattle. Carroll said Feb. 28, 2023, at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis he expected the Seahawks to get a new contract done with Smith soon.
Carroll sees this as an edge Smith has sharpened since last year.
This is the first August since 2013 that Smith’s been his team’s declared and returning starter, since his second and final season starting for the New York Jets who drafted him out of WVU in 2012.
Carroll is applying this “G Prep” to every position on the team.
“Offensive linemen in particular,” Carroll said.
Because of injuries and ineffectiveness, the Seahawks have routinely started eight or more players at the five spots on Seattle’s offensive line for most of the last decade.
“Those guys have to think they’re going to play, because it can happen one play away,” Carroll said.
“We’re learning something. I’m proud. We can give Geno for that.”
Carroll sees Smith’s growth from the summer of 2022 to now as reason to believe he can duplicate if not surpass his play of last season.
If that happens, with smooth rookie Jaxon Smith-Njigba joining Metcalf and Lockett for Smith to throw to? The offense and entire Seahawks franchise will gladly take that in 2023.
“We are going to watch him I think really take this process on full speed and he’s going to be really effective,” Carroll said. “And I can’t imagine him not doing it.”
This story was originally
Published August 30, 2023, 5:01 AM.
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Gregg Bell is the Seahawks and NFL writer for The News Tribune. He is a two-time Washington state sportswriter of the year, voted by the National Sports Media Association in January 2023 and January 2019. He started covering the NFL in 2002 as the Oakland Raiders beat writer for The Sacramento Bee. The Ohio native began covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season of 2005. In a prior life he graduated from West Point and served as a tactical intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, so he may ask you to drop and give him 10.