Maybe it’s time to give Seahawks GM John Schneider credit for avoiding bad decisions

There is a video I’ve kept on my computer for the past two years. I’ll click on it every once in a while when I need to be reminded of the uncertainty inherent in evaluating NFL quarterbacks.

“Onto Seattle,” says the man in the video, “where basically everything surrounding the Seahawks and their quarterback situation just makes me sad.”

The clip is from 2022, and the man is wearing glasses and a sports jacket, a lavalier microphone clipped to his white dress shirt. His name is Adam Schein, and he’s been covering sports for about 25 years now, having hosted shows on Sirius XM Radio as well as CBS Sports Network. Two years ago, as Seattle prepared for its first season after trading Russell Wilson, Schein was not exactly enamored with candidates Seattle had put forward to play quarterback.

“This is the most embarrassing, saddest, pathetic quarterback competition of all time between Drew Lock and Geno Smith. It’s brutal.”

OK then.

“This is the dumbest calculation I’ve ever seen from any team ever,” Schein says at one point.

Two years later, the Seahawks are 3-0 with Smith ranking No. 2 among all NFL quarterbacks in completion percentage and No. 3 in yards. Not bad for a place that Schein dubbed “the place where hope goes to die” back in 2022.

I’m bringing up this guy’s assessments not just because I want to point out how wrong he was – though I must admit that is kind of fun. The clip points to what I believe to be John Schneider’s single greatest attribute as the Seahawks GM: He is immune to the virulent idiocy that afflicts so many people when it comes to NFL quarterbacks.

It’s not just media members like myself and Schein who are prone to craziness. These teams that are so ruthless and pragmatic when it comes to other positions – cutting high-priced veterans and treating draft picks like treasury bonds – behave like drunken sailors when it comes time to get a quarterback.

They’ll mortgage their future to pick one like Carolina did last year when it moved up from the ninth pick to choose Bryce Young with the first overall pick. Other teams spend a fortune like the Atlanta Falcons did this year, signing Kirk Cousins this offseason. Sometimes they trade draft picks just so they can spend millions of dollars on a quarterback, like Denver did two years ago when it acquired Russell Wilson from Seattle.

No one was cutting videos ripping on those teams for failing to do anything at quarterback. Then again, none of those teams actually answered their question at quarterback. Young has been benched two games into his second season with the Panthers, the Falcons are 1-2 with Cousins, and you’re about to start hearing people ask when Michael Penix might play. The Broncos are paying Wilson $37 million to play for Pittsburgh this season.

Teams have a tendency to get desperate when there’s a question at quarterback, which is understandable given the importance of the position. That’s what makes Schneider’s steely patience even more impressive and more important.

Twice now, Schneider has had to find a successor to someone who was a legitimate franchise quarterback, first moving on from Matt Hasselbeck in 2011 and then Wilson in 2022. In each case he’s moved through a series of options that many considered underwhelming, only to have a surprising success blossom at which point everyone marveled at how incredibly lucky Seattle got.

To a certain extent, that’s true. Seattle was fortunate to draft a franchise quarterback in the third round as it did when it drafted Wilson, and Smith’s second act as an NFL starter has been better than anyone had a right to expect.

But at a certain point, it stops being luck or coincidence. Under Schneider, Seattle has taken a different path than other teams when it comes to finding a long-term quarterback. Instead of using a top-10 draft pick or making a significant trade, Schneider has limited just how much he bets on his ability to accurately forecast the future of a quarterback. He’s accepted the inherent uncertainty in evaluating the position and decided he’s not going all-in on a hope or a hunch. Not even when others around the league are cracking jokes at a quarterback competition between Smith and Lock.

I’m not minimizing Schneider’s expertise. He has a pretty good eye for quarterbacks.

He thought that Aaron Rodgers was the best player in the draft back in 2005 and then watched as the Cal quarterback fell all the way to No. 24 overall. Schneider was the driving force behind Seattle’s selection of Wilson in the third round.

Schneider was high on Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen when they entered the league as well, attending their respective pro days on scouting trips that Russell Wilson’s agent never quite got over.

But Schneider is also the guy who traded for Charlie Whitehurst in 2010 and paid Matt Flynn $10 million to come to Seattle two years later. Sure, he signed Smith to be Wilson’s backup. He also signed Paxton Lynch.

Schneider doesn’t have some sort of Midas touch when it comes to quarterbacks. He’s missed just like everyone else. The difference is that the cost of the quarterbacks he acquired was never so high that it hobbled the team going forward.

He’s been kind of frugal, which means he hasn’t gotten the quarterback targets that everyone is cooing about in the offseason. This has translated to repeated criticism over the fact that he hasn’t done enough to address the situation at quarterback.

Instead, Schneider has done something that is increasingly rare at the position: He’s held off on a long-term commitment until the quarterback shows he’s worth it.

That’s how it worked with Wilson, who got a big-budget extension after three seasons as Seattle’s starter. This is Smith’s third season as the starter, and if he keeps up this current level of play, I would fully expect that to happen for him at some point before next season, at which point I’ll probably look in my computer to find that video from 2022 and chuckle to myself as I listen to Adam Schein’s assessment.

“The Seahawks are a disaster,” he said. “This is where hope goes to die.”

Nah. The quickest path to disaster is letting desperation fuel the acquisition of a high-priced quarterback, and that’s something Schneider has been able to avoid on multiple occasions.

Danny O’Neil was born in Oregon, the son of a logger, but had the good sense to attend college in Washington. He’s covered Seattle sports for 20 years, writing for two newspapers, one glossy magazine and hosting a daily radio show for eight years on KIRO 710 AM. You can subscribe to his free newsletter and find his other work at dannyoneil.com.