Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald comments on Geno Smith and Drew Lock

The Seahawks front office has a lot of tough decisions to make in the coming days, especially at the quarterback position. While it may seem that starter Geno Smith is here to stay (at least for the 2024 season) after they restructured his contract, his future with this franchise is far from certain.

Observe this clip of new Seattle head coach Mike Macdonald getting interviewed by Aaron Levine at Q13 Fox, in which he gives a non-commital, non-answer regarding the status of Geno Smith and Drew Lock. The video has been going viral on Seahawks social the last couple of days.

Here’s the clip from @AaronLevine_’s interview. How can you not read into this? It’s a non-committal answer on Geno Smith every time, for no reason, if the intention is for him to be the starter next season #Seahawkspic.twitter.com/7pLuEIOp3B

— Rob Staton (@robstaton) February 26, 2024

Geno Smith is by far the most-qualified quarterback to run this offense in 2024 but it’s still too early to tell if that will be the case.

If you think of this team’s roster like a puzzle, the pieces were just poured out of the box and the front office may only have a few of their edge pieces connected on the outer rim – those pieces being young standout players who aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. That includes cornerbacks Devon Witherspoon and Riq Woolen, running back Ken Walker and wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, to name a few. Foundational pieces like wideout DK Metcalf are also firmly in place.

Aside from those handful of names and the players on rookie contracts, the team’s 2024 roster is virtually a complete unknown. Yes, odds are that there is a Geno Smith shaped figure in the middle of it somewhere, but we just don’t have enough information at this point in the calendar year to say so definitively, even after Smith’s bonus hitting and contract restructure.

Let’s stick to what we know.

NFL coaches/executives are by nature cautious with information about their plans. However, the follow-up tweet from Adam Schefter at ESPN – who initially reported Smith’s roster bonus hitting the books – made it clear that the Seahawks are open to entertaining trade offers for Smith. The contract restructure did nothing to change that. In fact, if anything it made Smith even more tradeable.

For now, we can safely assume that the Seahawks are 100% comfortable with keeping Geno Smith and planning to start him in Week 1. We can also assume that if they get an offer for Smith…