How Will Present Impact Future For Seattle Seahawks at QB?

Geno Smith won't have to worry about competition for his starting quarterback job with the Seahawks in 2024. But what about the future with Sam Howell on board?

While Geno Smith enters 2024 as the Seahawks undisputed starter, the franchise may have some tough decisions to make beyond tis season after acquiring Sam Howell as a potential heir apparent. /

Between public comments from general manager John Schneider and coach Mike Macdonald and Geno Smith receiving all of the first-team reps during the offseason program, the Seattle Seahawks haven't been coy when it comes to who will start at quarterback this upcoming season.

After acquiring Sam Howell from the Commanders in mid-March, speculation ran rampant about the Seahawks possibly turning the page at quarterback, or at minimum opening up a competition this summer with a new coaching staff in place. But Schneider and Macdonald quickly threw water on that idea, declaring Smith as the undisputed starter, which shouldn't come as a surprise considering his quality play under center earning back-to-back Pro Bowl selections.

In the short term, especially with Smith set to earn $26 million in 2024, Seattle's best chance at contending in the NFC West lies with the veteran taking snaps under center and slinging the pigskin in new coordinator Ryan Grubb's offense. But the decision to trade for Howell - who has two years remaining on his rookie deal - rather than investing a draft pick in a young signal caller, creates a conundrum for the franchise at the most important position.

Jumping on as a guest on the Locked On Seahawks podcast, reporter Gregg Bell of the Tacoma News Tribune took a deep dive into the potential problem the Seahawks now face at quarterback beyond 2024, starting with the prospects of not getting any meaningful snaps to evaluate Howell as a future starter candidate this upcoming season.

"If this season goes as the Seahawks are hoping, Geno Smith plays all the snaps - at least all the meaningful ones, if not all of them like Russell Wilson used to - and Sam Howell plays none. And Sam Howell makes no starts," Bell explained. "He would not have played except in the preseason and his training camps coming up. I can't see how they could make the determination in these summer practices, preseason games, 'yeah, Sam Howell's our guy for the future.' I don't see that. But then I don't see a place for him in this year's game planning either."

As Bell noted, the Seahawks have gone all in on Smith for a variety of reasons. For one, he's been a top-10 quarterback in most metrics over the past two seasons, and if he continues to play near that level in Grubb's system, the team should be in the hunt for a playoff spot. He also has a cap hit of $26 million and as long as he avoids injury, the team won't be subbing him out to give Howell a handful of reps in the regular season with an eye towards 2025 and beyond.

For Seattle to have the best shot at pushing San Francisco for an NFC West title, Smith needs to be healthy and dialed in. As the late, great John Madden once said, "if you have two quarterbacks, you actually have none," and the last thing Grubb will want to do is start platooning at the position in critical regular season games to see what Howell can do. NFL teams don't operate that way and common sense backs up that logic.

But while giving all the reps to the starting quarterback universally is viewed as a sound strategy, the clock already has started ticking for the Seahawks to figure out whether or not Howell can be the guy moving forward. Even after starting 17 games for the Commanders and throwing 21 touchdowns last season, not being able to assess him in regular season games running Grubb's system puts a blindfold on both the coaching staff and the front office as they try to figure out the quarterback situation for the future.

If Smith wasn't an 11-year veteran, the situation may not seem as dire. But the veteran will turn 34 years old during the 2024 season and though he's exceeded all expectations since replacing Russell Wilson, Bell doesn't see him as the quarterback of the future and finds it difficult to see how the Seahawks would hand him another lucrative extension unless he forces their hand with a career year and leads the team to playoff success.

Without a clear path to see what they have in Howell, who would be unofficially be redshirting on the sidelines with a year of cheap club control on his rookie contract evaporating, this would undoubtedly put more pressure on the organization. Putting Schneider into an unenviable spot, he would have to likely have to chose between paying Smith, letting the veteran go and rolling the dice on Howell without any meaningful regular season snaps, or starting over and drafting a quarterback next April.

"Unless Smith throws for 5,000 yards and becomes an All Pro and they go to the NFC title game or the Super Bowl, they're not going to give him a new contract," Bell opined. "Will they give Sam Howell a new contract based on preseason games and a training camp? That's really the question that they're looking at right now."

Listen to the latest Locked On Seahawks in entirety here as Bell shares his thoughts on how the Seahawks present quarterback situation heading into training camp may have an impact on future decisions at the position, who will win the right guard competition, why the run game may be the biggest key to Grubb's offense finding early success, and more. Subscribe for free to the podcast platform of your choice here.