Las Vegas Raiders Shock Fans as Geno Smith Crowned Best NFL Quarterback in This Surprising Category

The Las Vegas Raiders are hoping that their 2025 offense can experience a dramatic turnaround from 2024, when they were bottom-5 in the NFL in basically every category. 

At the core of those hopes is new quarterback Geno Smith, who the Raiders acquired from the Seattle Seahawks on March 7, 2025. The Raiders signed Smith to a two-year extension after the trade, signaling their belief in Smith to lead Las Vegas for the next few seasons. 

Rather than developing a young quarterback, Carroll opted to hand the keys to the Las Vegas offense to a veteran he previously worked with, at least for the next three years that Smith is under contract. 

Raiders fans won’t know how Smith, Carroll, and new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly work together until they hit the field on September 7, 2025 for their first game of the NFL season against the New England Patriots. 

But if recent history is any indication, Raiders fans can expect Smith and the Raiders to be sneaky good at one aspect of their offense. 

Smith is Elite At Longer Passes 

On Monday June 16, 2025, Pro Football Focus made a post on X, with a graphic containing a top-5 list of the highest-graded passers on 20+ yard passes since 2022. 

The list contained superstar QBs like Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals and Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills, which is to be expected. 

But atop the list was a major surprise to many fans. Geno Smith has the highest grade of any quarterback on 20+ yard passes since 2022, with a grade of 99.9. 

Smith has racked up big totals in yards during his career, he has over 4200 yards in two of the past three seasons. He’s not typically known as having one of the biggest arms in the NFL, but numbers hardly ever lie. 

If Smith is great at long tosses again, and all of the speed the Raiders have at wide receiver develops, the Raiders should have one of the most dangerous big-play offenses in the NFL in 2025. 

Downsides to Smith’s Style of Play?

NFL insiders have very mixed opinions on how effective Smith will really be in 2025. 

NFL insider Alex Ballentine of Bleacher Report doesn’t believe in the Raiders’ wideout core, and also believes that Smith is regressing. 

Ballentine pointed out that Smith had 15 interceptions in 2025, the second-most in his NFL career. 

Smith also, however, had the highest yard total of his NFL career last season with 4,320. 

It seems difficult to say that Smith is clearly regressing when he just had a Pro Bowl season as recently as 2023 and set a career-high in yards in 2024. 

But Ballentine does sort of point out an interesting trend: Smith racked up more yards than ever before last season, but also saw an uptick in interceptions. 

If Smith continues to take risks on deep passes, there may be some frustrating interceptions more often than Raiders fans want to see. 

The Raiders, and their supporters, just have to decide if those risks are worth it to have one of the best deep throwers in the game.