In the end Geno Smith got only a tiny bit more from the Las Vegas Raiders than Sam Darnold got from the Seattle Seahawks to replace him. Smith's new deal with the Raiders amounts to a three-year, $105 million deal, just $4.5 million more max than Darnold can earn on his contract.
So clearly, money was not the main issue for Smith, who requested a trade after refusing to counter Seattle's last offer. Now we have more information about the rift, courtesy of a column from Albert Breer at Sports Illustrated, wherein Smith talked about a perceived disrespect and disconnect with his old team, including escape hatches in their proposed contract.
In his latest appearance on Seattle Sports radio Schneider addressed Geno's comments, insisting that the team made a strong offer and wanted Smith to stay.
“Very comfortable the way we handled it and knowing that, (as) a wise man told me once, you can’t tell somebody how to feel… There’s a lot of things you can do, but these are this person’s feelings. And it’s like any other relationship. That’s the way you feel. I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong.”
Schneider has a point - that the Seahawks made a reasonable offer compared to Smith's market. However, this is also not the first or the second or the third time that a key Seahawks player has felt disrespected by an offer from Schneider, leading to their exit.
There have been rare exceptions, such as Russell Wilson's first mega-extension and Leonard Williams' recent three-year deal - but by and large Seattle has refused to go big to pay their own pending free agents to stay - and in recent years they haven't handed any contracts for longer than three years to anybody.
While there is some logic to running the team like a college program - refusing to make serious long-term commitmens to even star players will likely hurt their odds of returning to the Super Bowl in the long run.
