There was some hope that the Las Vegas Raiders were finally getting back on track when they hired Pete Carroll to be their head coach during the offseason and later acquired Geno Smith, his old quarterback, from the Seattle Seahawks.
But that hope evaporated pretty quickly. Now that the calendar has turned over the December, the Raiders have a 2-10 record, and Smith isn’t playing at the level he was at during his previous three seasons in Seattle.
Some have been wondering if Smith, who is 35 years of age, will stick around in Las Vegas for next season. On the “Las Vegas Raiders Insiders” podcast, Hondo Carpenter of Sports Illustrated said that he feels Smith will still be under center for the Raiders next fall.
“I would suspect they will probably bring Geno back at this point. That is not definitive, but I’m just reading the tea leaves, talking to some people,” Carpenter said.
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One would think that the Raiders would look to take a quarterback in this April’s NFL draft, which would make one think that Smith could be gone. But Carpenter feels that isn’t necessarily true.
“I think they will probably bring Geno back to develop [a young quarterback],” Carpenter added.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Vinny Bonsignore gave another reason why Las Vegas could keep Smith around for one more year.
“Geno Smith, everyone brings up the hard cap hit. It’s also $18 million in cash that you have to pay him. It’s not something that’s just a repercussion, you know, a salary cap repercussion,” Bonsignore said on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate last week.
“This is actual money,” Bonsignore continued. “So I would probably lean more toward… you draft a quarterback, Geno Smith becomes the guy that you roll into next year with until you feel like the rookie is ready to take over and then you hand over the reins to him. That might not be next year. It could be the year after that.”
It has been a rough season for Smith. He has thrown for 2,532 yards and 15 touchdowns, but he’s tied for the most interceptions in the NFL with 14. His yards per game, yards per pass attempt, passer rating and QBR are all significantly lower than they were the previous three seasons, when he made the Pro Bowl twice.
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When the Raiders lost at home on Nov. 23 to the Cleveland Browns, a team that is equally bad, fans booed them, and they were roughest on Smith. As he left the field, the quarterback made a derogatory gesture to the fans of his own team, something that was caught on camera.
While he later apologized, it could be seen as a symbol of the Raiders’ struggles this season.
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