The Las Vegas Raiders were searching for a quarterback to help them in the first year of the Pete Carroll era. They ended up trading for Geno Smith, who played for Carroll when the two were in Seattle together. That decision has not been a good one, to say the least.
Despite playing well for Seattle during his three years as the starting quarterback, Smith has been dreadful for the Raiders, throwing seven touchdowns and a league-leading 10 picks in his first seven games of the 2025 NFL season.
This is not what the Raiders were hoping for when they traded for the former Seahawks quarterback. No one was expecting this team to compete for the division by any means, but they at least hoped that Smith could make this team competitive and sneak in as a Wild Card.
Raiders fans may have Tom Brady to thank for massive offseason mistake
To make matters worse, the Raiders had reportedly been eyeing Sam Darnold this offseason, who has played well for the Seahawks thus far. But they didn't end up signing Darnold because minority owner Tom Brady wasn't into the idea.
Back in June, Michael Silver of The Athletic reported that, while Las Vegas' brass had largely been interested in signing Sam Darnold, Brady was the one who was not in favor of the move.
"While some believed the Las Vegas Raiders would try to sign Darnold, minority owner Tom Brady — a seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback whose opinion held great sway — was not in favor of that approach, according to a source familiar with the franchise’s internal discussions," Silver wrote.
As we know, the Raiders ended up trading for Smith, something that Brady signed off on. Brady reportedly respected Smith and what he could do on the field, but, well, here we are. Smith is playing terribly, and the Raiders are 2-5, while Darnold has thrown 12 touchdowns and only four interceptions and has the Seahawks at 5-2.
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Brady definitely has more swing than most minority owners do for their teams, and that's not surprising considering the seven Super Bowls he won during his NFL career. This decision, however, could end up being a painful one for Las Vegas, especially if Darnold goes on to lead the Seahawks to a postseason appearance and some playoff wins.
The Raiders can and will move on from Smith soon, and hopefully, they'll find their next quarterback in the draft. But Brady will definitely be heavily involved in that decision as well, and it begs the question of whether he'll be able to make the right choice.
As fans saw during the John Elway general manager experiment with the Broncos, just because a guy played the quarterback position well doesn't always mean he can evaluate it well. Brady already has one strike against him for passing on Darnold and advocating for Smith instead, so fans are hoping that he rights the ship the next time around.