When the Las Vegas Raiders traded a 2025 third-round draft pick to the Seattle Seahawks for Geno Smith and signed him to a two-year, $75 million contract extension, the vision was that they had secured their quarterback for the next couple of seasons.
However, Year 1 for Smith in Las Vegas has been a disaster with the veteran quarterback throwing 12 interceptions, which leads the NFL after the Raiders’ 10-7 loss to the Denver Broncos on November 6.
With the draft capital and financial commitment made to Smith, FS1 host Colin Cowherd shared his true feelings on this decision after the Silver and Black fell to 2-7 with the Week 10 defeat.
“The Raiders, they overpaid, overpursued Geno Smith, who once again leads the NFL in picks,” Cowherd said on the November 7 edition of “The Herd.” “I mean, he can’t figure out basic pass protection. It’s bad. Right now, he’s arguably the worst quarterback in the league. The last two years, Geno Smith has seven more interceptions than the next highest interception quarterback. So it’s one thing to settle at quarterback. You should never settle at quarterback. It’s another to pursue the wrong one.
“I understand sometimes you draft a quarterback and you don’t really know how it’s going to pan out because it’s college football to pro. Geno has been in the league as long as I’ve been at FOX. You got a lot of tape on me. You got a lot of tape on Geno. You got to know after all these years in the league what a guy is and what a guy isn’t. The smart GMs are not pursuing, pursuing, surrendering a third-round pick.”
Did the Raiders Make a Mistake on Geno Smith?
Moreover, Cowherd didn’t stop at just saying that the Smith trade was a mistake; he wonders why the Raiders didn’t go all in on Darnold, considering he was a free agent.
“The Raiders could have had Sam Darnold,“ Cowherd added. “Nobody in the world thinks Geno Smith is better than Darnold. And the other thing is, Brock Bowers, as far as I can tell — I don’t have the game film — is open on every play. How does he have one reception? I don’t even understand it… So Pete Carroll had a full year away from football to modernize, to reflect, to look in the mirror, to take stock, to evaluate everything. And he went back to Geno Smith. That ain’t good…
“In the modern NFL, if you are tone deaf to quarterback, you’re tone deaf to winning. And again, it’s not like Geno didn’t have a resume. You didn’t need to go to West Virginia sophomore year to look at film. You could have gone to last year. And Pete had a year off to reflect… Offensively, I don’t even know what the Raiders are.”
Will the Raiders Go Down With Geno Smith?
Despite the injury he picked up in the loss to the Broncos and poor play, former Raiders linebacker Kirk Morrison believes that Las Vegas needs to stick with Smith.
“Geno Smith was hampered, and to not go to at least Kenny Pickett at some point at least I thought Kenny Pickett should have an opportunity to try to use his legs a little bit, get out there on the perimeter,“ Morrison said during an appearance on “Raiders Postgame Live.”
“I don’t think bringing back [Aidan O’Connell] right away, coming off of a mini bye. Geno’s the quarterback. [Smith] came in and [he] started the season; you extended him. You traded for him. You kind of have to go down with him.”
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