Why Geno Smith makes the Raiders a playoff team

Heading into an off-season where the Las Vegas Raiders needed to find a legitimate option at quarterback, whether they be a rookie or a veteran, the team was able to swing big and get former Seahawks' starter Geno Smith for just a third-round pick. 

After a career that started with him being selected in the second round by the Jets over a decade ago, Smith has blossomed into one of the league's most productive quarterbacks in Seattle, after replacing Russell Wilson, where he recorded a career-high 4,320 passing yards last season. 

Now reunited with Pete Carroll in Las Vegas, Smith is the team's starter for the foreseeable future as the Raiders work to get an extension done, and he represents a massive upgrade over the team's former off-season additions at the position, such as Jimmy Garoppolo and Gardner Minshew. 

Still, there are members of Raider Nation who are bemoaning the move, as if Smith is still the quarterback he was a decade ago when this could not be further from the truth. In fact, Las Vegas and Smith appear to be a match made in heaven for both the player and the team. 

One of the most underrated and underappreciated players in the NFL, let’s go deep into what makes Geno Smith such an exciting addition in Las Vegas.

Geno Smith's Skillset

Whenever you can acquire a quarterback who has an elite trait, in any area, it will raise the floor of your offense. Fortunately for the Raiders, Geno Smith is elite at navigating broken pockets and managing pressure. 

As seen in the play above against the Falcons, Smith is a master at navigating the pocket with slight movements away from pressure that allow him to buy himself time while also keeping his eyes down the field to hit big plays. 

He showed the ability to do this repeatedly while in Seattle, who had one of the worst interior offensive lines in the league. Regardless, Smith continued to produce big plays due to his knack for finding room in the pocket. 

What often sticks out the most about Smith’s ability to mitigate pressure is his willingness to stay aggressive down the field. This often means standing in the pocket and taking big hits, but it never deters Smith, who throws some of the league's prettiest deep balls. 

Simply put, the Seahawks and former offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb didn’t put Smith in a lot of positions to succeed. Under Shane Waldron in his first two years in Seattle, Smith ran the wide zone, West Coast-style offense with tremendous comfort due to his fantastic ability to deliver the ball off play action. 

Under Grubb, these plays were inexplicably hard to come by. Instead, the Seattle offense was static, using very little motion and almost never asking Smith to run play action. While this is typical for Grubb, who ran a true spread offense at Washington prior to the NFL, the lack of adaptation to the quarterback's strength is mystifying. 

Still, Smith found success and finished with PFF’s third-highest passing grade on non-play-action plays, despite having the highest pressure rate on these plays. The above graph also displays just how many non-play-action dropbacks Smith had comparative to his peers.

So, while Geno Smith has shown the ability to be an elite play-action passer in the past, he also displayed the ability to succeed in a scheme that did nearly nothing to help him and instead relied entirely upon his skill set to generate offense. 

How Geno Smith fits Chip Kelly’s offense 

As mentioned, the Raiders' hiring of Pete Carroll makes the addition of Geno Smith a reunion for the two former Seahawks. A reality that must be exciting for both the player and the coach as the two had very productive seasons together. 

It is well known that Carroll likes to be physical on offense with a dominant running game that can counter it with downfield shots off of play action like Russell Wilson did for so many years. Now, while Carroll doesn’t call the plays, he has found a like-minded individual who will in Chip Kelly.

Known as one of the greatest play designers in the run game that the sport has ever seen, Kelly is equally adept at calling play action, as evidenced by the offense he called last year at Ohio State. 

En route to a national championship, Kelly and the Buckeyes utilized play action a ton as they had a quarterback in Will Howard who had no issues turning his back to the defense and still delivering the ball at the end of his drop. 

These play-action plays by Kelly created huge plays down the field, mostly for Geno’s cousin, Jeremiah Smith, as they were the engine of an offense that built its identity on a stout running game. 

In Las Vegas, Smith is a perfect fit for this scheme as it is tremendously similar to the one he engineered in Seattle under Waldron for two seasons where he was one of the NFL’s most lethal passers off of play action, and even received praise from Peyton Manning for the quality of his play fakes. 

While Kelly is well-known as a spread offense guru, he has done well to adapt to the wide zone-style offenses that have taken the league by storm, as seen on teams such as San Francisco, Minnesota and the Rams. 

Of course, the dropback passing game will still exist and likely be highly productive after how well Smith ran exclusively that last season. However, it is unlikely that Kelly will abandon the play-action passes that Smith has so much success on in the same way Seattle did. Especially with a head coach like Carroll ultimately calling the shots. 

How the roster fits Geno Smith 

While the roster is certainly not set in stone for the Raiders and many additions are likely to come, Las Vegas currently features multiple players who can make Smith’s life easier. 

First and foremost, the Raiders' phenomenal rookie tight end Brock Bowers will be the feature player in the offense. While he is listed as a tight end, Bowers essentially plays slot receiver for the Silver and Black as he lined up in that position more than any other tight end last season en route to a rookie-record 112 catches. 

In addition, Jakobi Meyers recorded his first season with 1,000 receiving yards last year and did most of that damage from the slot as well. 

This gives Smith a pair of terrific weapons from the slot, a location where he threw the ball 35% of the time in 2024 to players such as Jaxson Smith-Njigba and Tyler Lockett. 

Of course, “JSN” will be staying in Seattle, but Tyler Lockett has already been released. At 32 years old, he is on the downturn of his career and was firmly the team’s third receiver last season, but Smith has been on record saying there isn’t a receiver he trusts more, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see Las Vegas bring the veteran in. 

Furthermore, another one of Smith’s favorite targets in D.K. Metcalf appears to be available for trade and is exactly what the Raiders' offense needs as a downfield, speed threat with some juice after the catch that will play on the boundary. 

With Metcalf in high demand, it could also be a position the Raiders elect to target in the draft, with players such as Tetairoa McMillan, Matthew Golden and Tre Harris all fitting the description. 

While it remains to be seen who it is, it seems inevitable the Raiders will bring in a receiver to play the X in Chip Kelly’s system and a running back or two to lighten the load on Smith, which should make the 2025 Raiders offense a formidable unit. 

Upon acquiring Geno Smith from the Seahawks, the Raiders may not have become a Super Bowl contender, but they are now a serious team who have a legit chance to make the playoffs in 2025.