Yes, Seahawks Fans, Geno Smith is for Real

NFL Week 10 - The Geno Smith Revival Tour isn't a fever dream. It's not a fluke or the product of an unsustainable model of offense (sorry, Daniel Jones) or any other explanation that takes credit away from the individual. Smith, with nearly a decade of NFL knowledge and training pent up just waiting to be unleashed, has become one of the league's preeminent pocket passers.

Smith's emergence is that much sweeter, at least for the Seahawks, because he is winning in all the ways Russell Wilson rarely did. Wilson, at his best, was obviously a better player and an MVP candidate, but he flew by the seat of his pants, trading three-and-outs for moonball deep passes and miraculous plays from outside the pocket every other drive. Smith, by contrast, is a prim and proper passer. He commands the pocket, he exhausts all of his progressions down to the humble checkdown, and, yes, he throws the hell out of the middle of the field.

The Rams won a Super Bowl last season by spamming and converting on plays like the one above. Backed up on third-and-12, the Seahawks come out in a 3x1 set with Tyler Lockett as the isolated receiver running an in-breaker right at the sticks. The idea is to stretch the weak side of the Cardinals strong-rotation Cover-3 and hit the in-breaker between the cornerback, the flat defender, and the weak hook player, but that's no easy task. It requires great timing, zip, and ball placement, a combination Matthew Stafford played with at an incomprehensible level last season. Smith isn't quite peak Stafford, but he has enough of the right stuff. Smith peeks at the deep safety through his initial drop to see if he can hit the post down the middle, but wastes no time at the top, hitches quick as a wink, and lets it rip as the receiver is barely coming out of the break. Smith's target takes a pop on the receiving end of the throw, but sometimes that's the price of converting third-and-long in the NFL.

Smith isn't just a "see window, throw window" type of passer, either. His timing and anticipation are as impressive as anyone's right now, but he's also quick to adapt to the circumstances. It's not as simple as going through the progressions as they are drawn out on the chalkboard and operating in a timely manner. Smith gets how the picture changes and how that calls for different types of ball locations. He knows how to throw his receivers open.

The Seahawks start in an empty formation with a bunch set to the left, but motion running back Kenneth Walker (9) across at the snap. The two remaining receivers, Lockett (16) and DK Metcalf (14), run a flat/corner Smash variation, a common red zone concept. Cornerback Antonio Hamilton (33) has outside leverage on Metcalf's corner route from the snap, though, and fights to stay outside and underneath the route in an effort to squeeze Metcalf to the back of the end zone and force the overthrow. Smith, as well as Metcalf, had another idea. Without any panic in his heart, Smith reads the corner's leverage and, even before Metcalf is out of the break, throws the ball in such a way that forces Metcalf to settle and pull away from the cornerback. To make that kind of in-the-moment read of the cornerback's leverage and let the ball go that quickly, with the pocket closing in, is as good as it gets.

The strides Smith has made as an aggressive, nuanced pocket passer are unbelievable. That was always going to be his path to success based on his college profile. Of course, nobody knew how good he would emerge on the other end of the eight-year long hiatus he took as a full-time starter, but those particular strengths at least square with the idea of Smith as a prospect.

What doesn't square at all is Smith's complete control under pressure. Both in college and during his early days with the Jets, Smith was numb to pressure in the worst way. He would hold the ball and wait for his primary targets down the field to come open, often without even trying to slide around in the pocket or find his checkdowns. Occasionally he would bail to scramble, but Smith was more often than not a sitting duck waiting to be strip-sacked. That's no longer the case. Smith is still numb to the bodies around him, but now in a productive manner. Smith sees, feels, and reacts to pressure now, but he doesn't let it derail him from getting to the right play.

Smith ranks seventh in adjusted net yards per attempt and fifth in EPA when pressured, and plays like this one make it easy to understand how that's been possible. Left tackle Charles Cross loses the rookie-on-rookie battle with Cardinals pass-rusher Cameron Thomas and gets bull-rushed straight into Smith's back. Despite the walls closing in, Smith shows no fear. He continues to slide up, brings his eyes off the crosser over the middle, and flicks the ball to George Fant (87) on a curl route. Smith had no chance to turn and bail, no room to slide back, and nowhere to step up for a throw, and yet he found a way to wiggle around the mosh pit to find his target between zones. A lot of other quarterbacks, even good ones, would collapse or fire an errant pass under that kind of pressure, but Smith continues to find ways to make something out of nothing from within the pocket more than most of his peers.

To the same point, Smith isn't as stubborn about hanging around and waiting for things to happen as he used to be. Now, he makes things happen on his own. Smith is not and never will be a top-class scrambler, but he has enough razzle and dazzle to make defenses pay for playing man coverage or getting too deep in their zones. The Cardinals didn't learn that lesson the first time around this season and paid for their sins again on Sunday.

On both of these plays, Smith doesn't waste any time switching gears from passer to ballcarrier. Versus zone coverage in the first clip, Smith makes his way through his entire progression, finally landing on Metcalf on the right sideline. Metcalf is sandwiched between two defenders, though, and Smith takes off as soon as he realizes it. In the second clip versus man coverage on third down, Smith doesn't even waste time letting all the routes develop. There's no need; he can get the yards himself. Maybe Lockett's route to the top of the screen would have been throwable if Smith had waited a tick, but there's no point in waiting for a maybe when there is a guaranteed first down to be picked up on the ground.

Smith has most of the answers a quarterback needs to play at a high level week-in and week-out. He isn't the most creative passer outside the pocket, nor is he the true rushing threat that guys such as Jalen Hurts or Lamar Jackson are, but he is fearless, he processes well, he understands how to adapt on the fly, and he's as accurate as anybody in the league right now. It feels like that can't hold up, and maybe it won't, but nothing about Smith's film to this point in the year suggests he's going to turn into a pumpkin again. He's just plain good right now.