Seattle Seahawks predicted to trade Geno Smith to AFC cellar-dweller

The most difficult question facing the Seattle Seahawks front office this offseason is what to do with Geno Smith. For three seasons he’s been a solid, high-value starter for Seattle and has helped keep them competitive despite fielding one of the league’s worst offensive lines year after year.

However, Smith is now 34 years old and entering the final year of his contract, which comes with a cap hit of $44.5 million. Lowering that number one way or the other will be critical in opening up space to fill out the rest of the roster, especially as they’re $16 million over the cap.

If worse comes to worse the Seahawks could always cut Smith and pocket $31 million in cap savings. Still, it would be much better if they could find a willing trade partner to take on Smith’s contract and potentially get something back in return instead of dumping Smith for nothing but cap room.

One analyst at Fansided believes the Seahawks will find what they’re looking for with Pete Carroll and the Las Vegas Raiders. Lou Scataglia is predicting that Smith will get dealt to the Raiders.

“Seattle won’t make any progress in the postseason as long as Geno Smith is their QB. A trade would save the Seahawks $31 million on their cap. The veteran QB may also demand a short extension, and we know that Carroll seems to have a bit of a different view on the QB position than most of us do. I can see the Raiders calling up the Seahawks to make a deal for Smith, and if you told me Smith was their QB in 2025 and 2026, I would not be shocked.”

Our best guess is that Seattle won’t get more than a fifth for Smith, which is a low price to pay for a competent starter. Vegas could potentially sweeten the deal by sending over one of their quarterbacks that’s unlikely to be involved in 2025.

The Raiders may have the league’s worst quarterback room right now. What little talent there is resides in the arm of Gardner Minshew, who has flashed at times at this level but has never had a quality supporting cast around him. Minshew might serve as a quality bridge-QB option at a low price – he has a cap number of $14 million for the year.

Substituting Minshew for Smith is of course a step down at quarterback, but that may need to be a step that the Seahawks take if they’re going to break out of their good-but-not-great trend. For now every available resource has to go into fixing their offensive line. When that’s set, then they can worry about finding their next franchise QB.