Geno Smith will be playing for the Jets this season, but most of his salary will be paid by the Raiders.
Smith will make a total of $19.5 million, of which the Raiders will pay $16.2 million and the Jets will pay $3.3 million, according to Albert Breer. So the Raiders are paying 83 percent of Smith’s salary this season.
Still, the contract extension the Raiders gave Smith when they traded for him last year guaranteed him $18.5 million, so the Raiders are saving $2.3 million compared to what they would have had to pay if they had cut him. And the Raiders get to move up on the third day of the draft, giving up their own seventh-round pick to get the Jets’ sixth-round pick in the exchange.
The deal also gives Smith an additional $1 million more than he was guaranteed this year, plus now he has the certainty of knowing where he’ll be. So it’s not a bad deal for him.
Now Smith goes back to his old team, and the Raiders get rid of a contract they wish they hadn’t agreed to a year ago.
Geno Smith is headed back to his first NFL team.
The Raiders and Jets have agreed to a trade that will send Smith back to the AFC East team that took him in the second round of the 2013 draft. Smith was the starter right out of the game, but threw 34 interceptions in 30 games and his run with the first team was short-circuited when teammate IK Enemkpali broke his jaw with a punch in the locker room ahead of the 2015 season.
Smith spent two more years with the Jets and four years as a backup before becoming the starter for the Seahawks in 2022. He moved on to the Raiders last season and will now go pack to his starting line.
“Complete full circle moment back to where it all began,” Smith told Ian Rapoport of NFL Media. “I’m excited to connect with my new teammates and coaches and everyone in the building as well as build a new relationship with the fan base and community.”
Smith did not play well for the Raiders in 2025, but the Jets are rolling the dice that he can turn things around one more time to author another improbable chapter in his career.
Could a Jets reunion be coming for Geno Smith? Yes, it could.
And it is.
Via Adam Schefter of ESPN, the Raiders are trading Smith and a 2026 seventh-round pick to the Jets for a 2026 sixth-round pick.
Smith, who received $40 million last year from the Raiders, was due to make $26.5 million in 2026. His contract is expected to be adjusted.
The Jets initially acquired Geno Smith in the second round of the 2013 draft. He was the starter for two years in New York. That ended after he suffered a broken jaw in a locker-room sucker punch from linebacker IK Enemkpali in August 2015.
He eventually resurfaced as the Seahawks’ starter, before being sent to Las Vegas last year for a third-round pick.
The move helps the Raiders avoid $18.5 million in guaranteed money for 2026 (unless they’ll be paying some of it to facilitate the trade). And it gives the Jets a short-term starting quarterback.
The return of Geno bolsters the notion that Justin Fields will be released. Unless he, too, is traded.
The Patriots are signing offensive guard Alijah Vera-Tucker to a three-year, $42 million deal worth up to $48 million, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports.
Vera-Tucker, 26, missed all of last season after tearing his left triceps in training camp with the Jets. It was the second triceps tear for Vera-Tucker after he tore his right one in Week 7 of 2022.
He tore his Achilles’ tendon in Week 5 of 2023.
Vera-Tucker has played only 43 games, while missing 41, since the Jets drafted him in the first round in 2021.
Still, he ranks 31st on PFT’s top-100 free agents list.
Jared Wilson, a third-round pick in 2025, started at left guard as a rookie. He is moving to center to replace Garrett Bradbury, with Vera-Tucker penciled in to start at left guard.
The Jets are signing safety Dane Belton to a one-year, $4 million deal, according to Jordan Schultz of The Schultz Report. Belton has an opportunity to make another $2 million in incentives.
He joins Minkah Fitzpatrick and Malachi Moore at the position.
Belton, 25, entered the NFL as a fourth-round pick of the Giants in 2022, and he spent his first four seasons with them.
He has 240 tackles, 16 passes defensed, four sacks, four forced fumbles and six interceptions in his career.
In 2025, Belton played nine games, with one start. He totaled 120 tackles, two sacks, an interception, five pass breakups and three forced fumbles. He saw action on 705 defensive snaps and 310 on special teams.
He has played all but two games in his career and hasn’t missed a game since his rookie season.
