Seahawks QB Geno Smith Regression: Reason Seattle 'Falls Apart'?

Many are bullish on what the Seattle Seahawks can do this season after last year's efforts, but not all are sold on the trajectory of Pete Carroll's team.

You will be hard-pressed to find many detractors to what the Seattle Seahawks are capable of entering this season. After several good additions on both sides of the ball, many feel that Seattle, under Pete Carroll, is again going to challenge the upper echelon in the NFC.

But not everyone...

CBS Sports isn't sold on Seattle this season and listed the potential regression of Geno Smith as a big reason why.

"After watching the Seahawks make the playoffs last season, I'm predicting that things fall apart this year," CBS Sports wrote. "I'm not saying things are going to completely fall apart like they did for the Cardinals, but I am saying that I don't expect the Seahawks to get back to the playoffs. 

"The biggest concern is Geno Smith and the fact that he started to fade down the stretch last season. Although Geno was spectacular early in the year, I think the Geno that we saw during the second half of the 2022 season is the one we're going to see in 2023."

Much has been made of Seattle's moves this offseason by bringing in Bobby Wagner, Dre'Mont Jones, Devin Bush, and Devon Witherspoon to help sure up the defense.

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The Seahawks then added Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Zach Charbonnet to an offense that was ranked inside the top 10 for points scored per game last season (23.9 points per game), and we can start to see why many have the Seahawks as a dark horse for the NFC.

But delving into the Geno doubt, while last season was nothing short of superb, looking at his career thus far, it could be seen as an outlier.

Much of the Seahawks' potential success this season is predicated on Smith at least replicating his form from last year. If there is a drop-off, where will that leave Seattle in the NFC picture?

Missing the playoffs in a weakened NFC for this Seattle team seems harder to do than making it, but Smith has to be on point again as the leader of Shane Waldron's offense.

Many have been caught up in Seattle's additions this offseason, and rightly so, but does the Seahawks' success start and stop with Geno?

We're about to find out on Sunday when the Seahawks host the Los Angeles Rams at Lumen Field for Week 1.