Don’t get me wrong…I’d take a 2nd in a heartbeat. That’s absolutely not a knock on Geno.
I know JS said he thinks this team is close talent wise. He’s thrown smokescreens before. I’m in the line of thinking that the FO believes we’re a few years out. Unless JS is sold on a guy, I don’t know who this team could get that’s on par or better than Geno for what we’re paying him. Throwing a rookie QB to the wolves, with our O-line in the state it is, sounds like a terrible idea.
Everyone is saying this is the year to grab a QB. “How” is my question. We could be looking at the 4th or 5th rated QB at 16. Predictions are hit and miss ofc…but that scenario doesn’t sound appealing…at all.
Unless we sell the future, we don’t have excess draft capital to do something crazy…perhaps thats in the form of a trade that involves a player we likely can’t afford to lose.
Maybe JS pulls some magic out of the mid to late rounds. Otherwise, we can wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which comes true.
Oh I 100% agree with the totality of your post. I agree that I don't see an attainable QB I'm sold on and absolutely zero acceptable starters for next year that are not Geno Smith. It is a terrible, terrible idea to take any of the prospects that'll be at 16 and throw them in year 1. My only point is that I think a second rounder is the value based on historical precedent. I'd detest any attempt to cut or trade Geno Smith in a year with a new regime that needs results out of the gate to legitimize their claim to the franchise.
To go further down this line of thought, without pulling punches:
The misconceptions about Geno's play drive me up the f****** wall. It is impossible to frame his play as badly as most of the fanbase does with any supporting data or supporting film. It's all confirmation bias to fit the view most had of Geno Smith for his entire career until 2022. Priors don't go away and human pattern recognition is going to make any and all individual subpar plays, regardless of fault or frequency of those bad plays compared to other quarterbacks, feel like a justification of their priors.
"Geno takes too many sacks" yet is absolutely elite, especially this past season, at sack avoidance compared to pressure rates he faced. "Geno turns the ball over too much" despite being solidly above average at ball security in his tenure here. "Geno isn't clutch" despite factually being
the best quarterback in the history of the buttf*****g NFL last year when it came to go-ahead touchdown passes late in games. Lock will be worse, or on par, to Geno in any of those categories and the same thing will be framed as "Wow! He deserves a shot, and Pete Carroll conspired against him for no reason because idk he's a FRIEND OF PETE or something!"
There are very valid Geno critiques, but the ones that are popular to harp on are based on nothing but validating whichever opinion the people throwing these critiques had
before Geno took over here. I mean hell, I watched people blame Geno (less here, more on twitter and facebook from casuals) for the Cowboys loss despite throwing an excellent game, having an above-90 QBR, taking zero sacks despite being faced with pressure on FIFTY. FOUR. PERCENT. of his dropbacks, and keeping Michael Dickson on the bench ALL GAME while putting up 35 points. I watched him win close games against the Commanders and Lions and then the fanbase at large throw that out of their memory to keep the "will Geno FINALLY win a game in the clutch??" angle alive. I watched people neg the record for go-ahead touchdowns as "well if he didn't SUCK he wouldn't be in a position to have to win the game for us!"
It's all priors. It is all a confirmation of priors, and it doesn't mesh with a "student of the game" mindset. Just human nature, and it's hard to override.
Legitimately no offense meant to people here who do want to move on from Geno, and this is to no one in particular. I just hate illogical arguments against him and I hate when people can't back them up with anything other than "umm haha I get you don't know ball" or whatever the f deflection is hopped to these days.
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