It's only training camp but Geno Smith is back to his old tricks (in a bad way)

Geno Smith is off to a mixed start in training camp with his new team, the Las Vegas Raiders. He is still adapting to a new offensive coordinator and new players around him. This is the same as it is for Sam Darnold and his Seattle Seahawks.

Smith, like Darnold, has thrown a bit too many interceptions in camp, but has also shown off great arm strength, made some fantastic passes, and tried to become the leader his team needs. But one Raiders reporter is learning something that Seahawks fans have known for three years about Smith.

Mike Dixon of Vegas Sports Today posted a couple of tweets this week that summed up Smith perfectly when he was still with Seattle. Smith will giveth, but he will taketh away as well. In fact, Geno Smith has a lot of Russell Wilson in him.

New Raiders QB Geno Smith is doing the same things he was doing with the Seattle Seahawks

The issue for the Seahawks for over a decade was that the team had a starting quarterback, beginning with Wilson in 2012 and (hopefully) ending with Smith in 2024, who had a cannon for an arm, threw a beautiful deep pass, but often held on to the ball far too long while looking for a splashy play when a check-down would do.

Dixon tweeted once, "Based on my observations, Geno Smith tends to hold the ball too long while scrambling in the pocket, which puts him at risk of being sacked a lot."

He later added another that read, "Maxx Crosby just sacked Geno Smith. Devin White just sacked Geno, too. While I was tweeting. As I pointed out yesterday Geno tends to hold on to the ball too long (sometimes)."

Bingo! While the Seahawks' offensive line was bad throughout Smith's three-year tenure, he compounded the issue by not throwing the ball away sooner. He took too many sacks when he could have tossed the ball out of bounds or tried to scramble. Of course, 12s were used to seeing that kind of play because that is what Russell Wilson did, too.

The hope is that Sam Darnold won't continue the trend. He might not run an offense as explosive as Smith's was, but that is what the Seahawks need. The defense should be dominant. The offense needs to be efficient and control how much it turns the ball over. That starts with Darnold being smarter about when to get rid of the ball than Smith was.

Geno Smith is going to make the Las Vegas Raiders better because it couldn't be much worse than it was last season. Smith has a head coach he can trust in the person of Pete Carroll, and a solid running game. But just as he did with the Seattle Seahawks, Smith is going to make decisions that make Raiders fans ask, "Why?"