Geno Smith is rewarding the Seattle Seahawks controversial decision to move on from Russell Wilson in a big way. Through four games, the Seahawks have the same record as Wilson's new team -- the Denver Broncos -- led by the excellent quarterback play of Smith.
Smith leads the NFL with a 77.3% completion rate, the highest in league history for any quarterback after four games in a season in NFL history (minimum 125 attempts). Smith has completed 77.3% of his passes for 1,037 yards with six touchdowns to two interceptions for a 108.0 passer rating (which ranks third in the NFL). Smith is 12th in touchdown percentage (4.5), seventh in interception percentage (1.5), fourth in yards per attempt (7.9), and tied for 10th in touchdown passes (six).
Smith joined Derek Carr (2020) and Tom Brady (2007) as the only quarterbacks to complete 70% of their passes in each of the team's first four games of a season. In Sunday's win over the Detroit Lions, Smith went 23 of 30 for 320 yards with two touchdowns, zero interceptions, and a 132.6 passer rating. He also had seve carries for 49 yards and a touchdown as the Seahawks put up 48 points.
"He played pretty good football, man," Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said. "I'm just thrilled for him and for our guys that he's had this kind of early success to jumpstart this season and show us that we can play really good football with him at the helm, and he's just been so rock steady throughout this whole process, and then he's playing and doing it, taking it on the road.
"There's a moment in this game when the crowd was as loud as it could have possibly been for that day, and he had to do something at the line of scrimmage, and he got it done. Everybody executed, and we really cashed in in a huge way.
"There's a few of those in the day, but there was moment in there that he's totally in command of the whole thing, and he had to communicate to everybody, and everybody ran the play right, and we really took advantage of that op, so. We could talk about a lot of stuff that they pulled off today. That was really, really good."
While Smith is off to a hot start in Seattle, how does he compare to Russell Wilson and his start with the Broncos? Smith is beating his former teammate in nearly every major category.
Geno Smith | Russell Wilson | |
| Completion Rate | 77.3 (1st) | 61.1 (23rd) |
| Pass Yards | 1,037 (10th) | 980 (15th) |
| Pass TD | 6 (t-10th) | 4 (t-20th) |
| Pass INT | 2 (t-21st) | 1 (t-32nd) |
| YPA | 7.9 (4th) | 7.5 (9th) |
| TD percentage | 4.5 (12th) | 3.1 (26th) |
| INT percentage | 1.5 (t-7th) | 0.8 (3rd) |
| Passer rating | 108.0 (3rd) | 91.1 (15th) |
| Record | 2-2 | 2-2 |
Clearly Smith has the edge over Wilson -- and Seattle is getting the most out of their quarterback. The jury is still out on both Wilson and Smith, but Seattle has the upper hand at the moment with the 31-year-old signal caller that wasn't a full-time starter since 2014.
The work Smith has put in with Seattle is paying early dividends.
"I'm grateful, but it's just about the work. It's about the work," Smith said. "I worked myself to this position as always, and it's just about continuing to work and working on day-to-day stuff and not getting focused on anything else.
"I can play better. I have not exceeded my expectations. I can play a lot better, just playing better."