Coach Mike Macdonald makes clear what he wants for Geno Smith’s future as Seahawks QB

Is Geno Smith returning to be the Seahawks’ quarterback next season?

His head coach says if he gets his way, yes.

“I want Geno to be here. I think he’s a heck of a player,” coach Mike Macdonald said Tuesday, speaking at an end-of-the-season press conference.

“The first thing it always comes back to is: What’s best for the team? I feel like Geno is the best for the team right now.”

Smith’s contract ends with the end of Seattle’s 2025 season, a few months after his 35th birthday. He wants a raise from his base salary of $12.7 million plus bonuses he got in 2024, and assurances he will be the Seahawks’ man beyond 2025. Twelve years into his career, he doesn’t want to play a lame-duck 2025 season riding out the end of his contract.

“I’m telling you man, this team is heading in the right direction. This team is on its way —that’s with or without me,” Smith said Sunday, following his career-high four touchdown passes in Seattle’s season-ending win at the Los Angeles Rams. “These guys in this locker room, these coaches, this organization: outstanding organization. And I believe in it. I believe the best of the best is going to happen for this team.

“I just want to continue to fight with these guys.”

The Seahawks don’t want to absorb all the salary-cap charge of $44.5 million Smith is scheduled to have next season. That charge went up by $6 million Sunday, when he reached all three of the incentive bonuses of $2 million each that were in play for Seattle’s season finale. Those bonuses were for a career-best completion rate of 70.4%, Seahawks-record 4,320 passing yards and 10 team wins for the season.

Reaching those contract-bonus benchmarks upped the roster guarantee Smith will get if he’s on the team March 16, the fifth day of the new league year per his contract’s language. That guarantee for 2025 went from $10 million to $16 million.

So March 16 would seem to be the date by which the Seahawks will decide whether to give Smith a new contract extension for at least two years, which would be the most direct way to diffuse that $44.5 million cap charge across multiple years, or to release him and start over at quarterback. Releasing Smith would save the team $31 million, while leaving a cap hit of $13.5 million on him being gone for 2025.

A sidebar to Smith’s contract and future: The change Macdonald just made to the offense.

He fired play caller and coordinator Ryan Grubb Monday, after just one season with the Seahawks. Grubb is the coach who worked most closely with Smith. Smith most intricately just learned Grubb’s new system and terminology.

Macdonald has started the search for a new offensive coordinator. The coach said the team has put in “a couple” of requests to other teams to interview unnamed candidates.

“We’ll kind of let that play out,” Macdonald said.

Smith was talking about his future minutes after the 2024 season ended Sunday with Seattle 10-7 but out of the playoffs for the second consecutive year, the first time for that in Seattle since 2008 and ‘09.

“Man, I have a bright future. I think y’all can see that and I believe we have a bright future together,” Smith said.

“Yeah, we all have a bright future together.”

Asked about his contract specifiially on Sunday, Smith said: “Those are things that I’ll talk to the people that I need to talk to about. I appreciate the question but I like to keep a lot of things internally and in-house. With respect to everybody involved, I think it’s the best way to do it.”

General manager John Schneider and chief salary-cap and contract executive Joey Laine know all this, of course. They are the ones doing the NFL math on the decision about Smith’s future with the team. They will present to team chair Jody Allen, vice chair Bert Kolde and Macdonald the future at quarterback as they see it.

Maconald said Tuesday “I’ll be involved with it.”

“Ultimately, it’s not my decision. It’s a Seahawks decision,” Macdonald said.

“But Geno knows how we feel about him. And we love him as our starting quarterback.”