Geno Smith has played in New York as recently as last season against the Giants.
And he’s played the Jets twice in Seattle.
But Sunday will mark the first time Smith will step into MetLife Stadium to play the Jets since he suited up for them during the first four years of his career from 2013-16.
And while his Jets’ tenure is often remembered mostly for its ending — Smith losing the starting job in 2015 in part due to a broken jaw suffered in a preseason locker room altercation with teammate IK Enemkpali, which opened the door for Ryan Fitzpatrick to take over — he says he’ll go back to his first NFL home with no bitterness.
“I’ve always had tremendous love and respect for that organization,’’ he said of the Jets, who took him with the 39th overall pick in the 2013 draft. “Obviously, the team that drafted me, gave me a chance out of the gate. A lot of great people there. Some people that I was there with, a lot of those people are now gone. So as far as the whole revenge thing, that’s not on my mind.
“Like I said, man, there’s a lot of great people in that city that I still talk to and I still love and still support so it’s the biggest game of the year because it’s the next game. But obviously, because I was drafted there, it’s going to be a narrative that’s built.”
The irresistible narrative, of course, is that Smith is a far different person and player than he was when that career-changing event happened in August 2015.
Seahawks defensive lineman Leonard Williams, who was drafted by the Jets in 2015 and was just beginning his career that season, says it may be an accurate one, as well.
“I remember when I first got here (following his trade to Seattle in October 2023) and met him, he seemed like almost a completely different person in my opinion,’’ Williams said. “I was also younger. We both were younger at the Jets, and now we’re a lot older. But seeing him now, he’s flourished into a great player, and a great leader, most importantly.”
Smith has said he thinks the success he’s enjoyed in Seattle would have been possible all along even without losing his job in New York and then enduring seven years as a backup. That’s a sequence of events often cited as giving Smith some needed time and space to mature and grow into the QB he became in Seattle.
But what matters to Smith more than being the center of his own redemption story Sunday in New York is continuing to be at the heart of one for the 2024 Seahawks.
The Jets game suddenly looms as critical as any in the past few years for Seattle thanks to wins the last two weeks over the 49ers and Cardinals that have the Seahawks tied for first place in the NFC West at 6-5.
The momentum of those wins could come to a screeching halt if Seattle can’t beat a 3-8 New York team, especially with a tough trio of games to follow — a trip for a return game against Arizona on Dec. 8 and then home games against the 8-3 Packers and 9-2 Vikings.
And for Seattle to capitalize on its sudden opportunity, what it will need from Smith is more of how he has closed out the past two games, and fewer of the earlier mistakes that made those late-game heroics necessary.
Smith threw second-half interceptions each of the last two weeks, including one in the end zone on the first play of the fourth quarter against Arizona, and now leads the NFL with 12.
While he also leads the league in pass attempts with 280, his interception total isn’t solely a matter of having thrown a ton of passes. His interception rate of 3.0 is more than a point higher than his previous two years as Seattle’s starter (1.9 in 2022 and 1.8 in 2023) and is ninth-highest in the NFL.
His interception against Arizona came on a play when he evaded a rush on third-and-six from the Cardinals’ 18 with Seattle ahead 13-3. It appeared momentarily as if he might be trying to run for the first down before he stopped and threw to Tyler Lockett in the end zone, only to find Cardinals’ cornerback Garrett Williams instead.
“You can make the right decision on every play but one, and that’ll be the play that I’ll emphasize and I’ll look at the most,’’ Smith said Wednesday. “And so how do I evaluate it? We won the game. That’s what I care about the most. Other than that, how can I get better?’’
The obvious answer is to simply have made a safer decision — keeping the ball would have meant at the worst settling for a short field goal and a 16-3 lead.
Instead, Arizona used the turnover to drive for a field goal that made it a 13-6 game.
But with the game again suddenly precarious, Smith was at his best, leading a 13-play drive that took up 8:12 and resulted in a field goal with 1:56 left that salted the game away.
One of the key plays was an 18-yard pass to DK Metcalf to convert a third-and-eight where he also evaded a rush and then threw on the run.
Therein lies something of a conundrum.
As Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said this week: “You never want to take the playmaker out of the player.’’
Which means, for Smith to have made the play like he did to Metcalf also means sometimes living with a few mistakes.
The hope, as always, is that there are far more good plays than bad.
“Making some decisions to protect the ball in those moments, yeah, he could probably be a little more careful in those situations,’’ Macdonald said. “But there’s a fine line there.”
Smith interestingly pointed out Wednesday that his favorite player growing up was Brett Favre.
While he’ll forever be known as one of the greatest QBs in NFL history, Favre also threw 336 interceptions — 59 more than any other QB in league history.
Smith said one reason he grew attached to Favre is that they have the same birthday, Oct. 10 (Favre in 1969, Smith in 1990).
But he also loved his style of play.
“What would Brett do?,’’ Smith said. “Keep slinging. That’s the way we play the game. I’ve never tried to be reckless. I’m always trying to make the right decision. But I do believe in myself. I believe in my arm, I believe in my process. I always talk to you guys about (how) at times bad things happen. That’s the way this game goes. But you can’t let that affect you if you really are who you say you are, then you just go and play the next play.”
As Smith returns to his first NFL home, what he doesn’t have to worry about is the support he has from his current one.
“Look, he knows how important ball dominance is to us and to not turn the ball over,’’ Macdonald said. “He knows that we can’t do that in those situations and we know he can’t. It’s not like we’re losing trust in him or anything. We’ve got his back, and a lot of the things that make Geno a great player is his playmaking ability.’’
