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The Las Vegas Raiders made what may have been the most stunning move of the offseason when they swung a trade with the Seattle Seahawks to acquire quarterback Geno Smith. The Raiders only had to send a third-round pick back to Seattle in return, and the move should immediately help them improve heading into 2025.
Smith spoke to the media in Las Vegas on Monday and expressed his confidence that he is going to go out there and show out for the Raiders this fall, via Vic Tafur of The Athletic.
“Not in a cocky or arrogant way, but I just feel I'm one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL,” Smith said, per Tafur. “I want to prove it to my teammates everyday and I want to make sure I am one of the best on Sundays.”
Smith was a polarizing figure in Seattle, with some fans backing him as one of the top quarterbacks in the league and others wanting him out of town and viewing him as unworthy of a new contract. Now, the latter group has gotten their wish and the Seahawks are moving forward with Sam Darnold.
This trade also reunites Smith with Pete Carroll, who coached him for a long time with the Seahawks. Carroll is back in the league as the head coach of the Raiders after a year off, and Smith is very excited to be back with his old coach.
“Geno Smith said he ‘would run through a wall for (Pete Carroll) and he knows that. And I would do the same for my teammates,'” Tafur wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Smith also recently got a new contract with the Raiders, which was part of the reason for the division between him and the Seahawks initially.
Smith and the Raiders still have a lot of work to do with the roster in order to compete in the AFC West, which projects to be one of the best divisions in all of football next season. On paper, Las Vegas still has the worst group of the bunch, but Smith has the talent to make them a frisky playoff team if he can find his best football all season long.
