The Las Vegas Raiders are still waiting for Geno Smith to break out of this slump. Even in the team’s Week 6 win over the Tennessee Titans, the veteran quarterback wasn’t very good.
To put into context how disappointing Smith has been, he had a passer rating over 92 in each of his last three seasons as the starter for the Seattle Seahawks. Through six games with the Raiders, Smith has a 77.6 passer rating, which is 31st in the NFL.
Las Vegas is likely at least 3-3 and even possibly 4-2 right now if they were getting better play from Smith. The Raiders play the Kansas City Chiefs, and Bleacher Report’s Brad Gagnon put Smith on notice by listing him as one of the NFL players with the most to prove.
“The 35-year-old has his work cut out for him trying to prove he isn’t just a bridge quarterback for a team that may target a signal-caller in the first round of next year’s draft, but he’s done an abysmal job for one of the league’s lowest-scoring teams,” Gagnon wrote.
Gagnon went so far as to suggest that this could be Smith’s last season as a starter.
“Injuries have been a factor, but that alone doesn’t get Smith off the hook,” Gagnon wrote. “He’s only been an average starter the last two-and-a-half years and is living off an aberrational standout 2022 campaign in Seattle. I doubt we will see him in a regular starting role again after 2025.”
How Long Can Raiders Stomach Smith’s Poor Play?
Smith hasn’t just been a disappointment; he’s been one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL this season. He’s been playing much more like the player we saw early in his career.
At 35, it’s fair to wonder if he’s just on the decline. The Raiders don’t have a lot of options. Kenny Pickett doesn’t have much upside. Aidan O’Connell could be coming back soon, but he looked really bad in the preseason.
The Raiders are likely going to keep starting Smith for the rest of the season unless things get even worse. Luckily for the quarterback, head coach Pete Carroll trusts him, but at a certain point, changes have to be made. This could be Smith’s only season in Las Vegas.
Future At QB Bleak for Raiders
The biggest problem facing the Raiders is that they don’t have a young quarterback they’re grooming to potentially replace Smith. In hindsight, they likely should’ve taken a flyer on a quarterback like Shedeur Sanders in the draft.
There are some intriguing prospects in the 2026 class, but all of them have major question marks. It’s not the 2024 class that featured Caleb Williams, Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels.
Will the Raiders want to start a rookie next season? It’s possible. Carroll started Russell Wilson as a rookie back in 2012, and the team won a Super Bowl the following year. It’s clear that Smith isn’t a player the team can rely on going forward, so the Raiders need to at least bring a quarterback to groom behind him if they decide not to cut him in the offseason.
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