Seattle Seahawks

As the Jets cast a wide net at quarterback, they could be pursuing one who got away.

Rich Cimini of ESPN, in an item that reviews the many possibilities at the position, mentions a potential reunion with a player the Jets selected in the second round of the 2013 draft.

Yes, there’s a chance Geno Smith will be coming back to Broadway. (Or, technically, the state that adjoins it.)

Cimini notes that the Jets had “high grades” on Smith a year ago, when he was traded by the Seahawks to the Raiders for a third-round pick.

Smith’s two-year stint as the Jets’ starter ended in 2015, when he suffered a broken jaw after taking a locker-room sucker punch from IK Enemkpali in August. The former West Virginia standout stayed on the roster through the 2016 season, before embarking on a five-year run with three different teams (Giants, Chargers, Seahawks) as a backup.

Smith inherited the starting job in Seattle after the Russell Wilson trade, ending an eight-year gap as a full-time starter.

He’s due to be cut by the Raiders, unless a trade materializes. Smith is owed $18.5 million in 2026, with another $8 million fully vesting later this week.

Although Smith made $40 million last year, he’ll likely not receive an offer exceeding the $18 million he’s already guaranteed to make in 2026. He could take a one-year deal for the minimum of $1.3 million, making him a low-cost option for a team interested in his services.

Could that happen with the Jets? While the coach and G.M. have changed (multiple times) since Smith left, the Jets have the same owner — and the same fan base. If the guy who holds the pink slip and the folks who wear the green jerseys to games are fine with a reunion, a Geno revival could be a viable short-term option for coach Aaron Glenn and first-year offensive coordinator Frank Reich.

Stranger things have happened in New York sports. At a time when multiple failed Jets draft picks at quarterback have found success elsewhere, why not bring one of them back for another go?

While it could be a low-risk move from a cost standpoint, the P.R. hit could be more than the Jets are willing to endure. Last year in Las Vegas didn’t go well for Smith. If the Jets roll out the red carpet and the losses once again outpace the wins, the Jets would be welcoming even more scrutiny and criticism.

After quarterback Matthew Stafford decided in February 2025 to stay with the Rams, the Raiders needed a quarterback.

They didn’t want Sam Darnold. They traded instead for Geno Smith, reuniting him with one-and-done head coach Pete Carroll.

The Raiders gave up a third-round pick to get Smith. They paid him $40 million last year. They owe another $18.5 million this year. They’ll release him (if they can’t trade him) before another $8 million becomes fully guaranteed next Friday.

So here’s the final cost: A third-round pick, and $58.5 million (minus up to $18.5 million this year, based on what he earns elsewhere). In return, the Raiders got 15 games, two of them wins.

It’s not Smith’s fault. The Raiders didn’t have nearly enough great players. For some reason, they thought they’d be competitive last year.

The decision to move on from Smith doesn’t entirely guarantee they’ll pick Fernando Mendoza with the first overall selection in the draft. Obviously, however, the top of the depth chart will look very different in 2026.

Whatever the Raiders do, they’ll need to get it right this time around. Which will require doing a lot more than finding a quarterback.

Geno Smith will be one and done with the Raiders.

According to multiple reports, Las Vegas is set to release Smith at the start of the new league year next week, barring the club finding a trade partner.

The move will save the Raiders $8 million against the cap with $18.5 million in dead money.

It also clears the deck for Las Vegas to select Fernando Mendoza at No. 1 overall in the 2026 draft next month, with Mendoza immediately stepping in as QB1.

Ian Rapoport of NFL Media notes that the club has been “aggressively” shopping Smith over the past few days.

The Raiders acquired Smith from the Seahawks a year ago, reuniting him with former head coach Pete Carroll. Las Vegas also signed Smith to a two-year, $75 million extension in early April.

But things did not work out for Smith, Carroll, or the Raiders at large in 2025. Smith finished the season having completed 67.4 percent of his passes for 3,025 yards with 19 touchdowns and a league-leading 17 interceptions in 15 games.

Smith, 35, could be a solid option for a team in need of a bridge starter this offseason. He did lead the Seahawks to 27 wins and one postseason appearance as the club’s starting quarterback from 2022-2024.

Seattle linebacker Drake Thomas had a breakthrough season last year, and the Seahawks have rewarded him for it.

Thomas and the Seahawks have agreed to a two-year, $8 million contract, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network.

Originally an undrafted rookie who signed with the Raiders but didn’t make their roster in 2023, Thomas was claimed by the Seahawks on waivers and used mostly on special teams in his first two seasons.

But in 2025, Thomas earned a starting job at linebacker and played well on the league’s best defense, recording 47 solo tackles, eight passes defensed, six quarterback hits, 3.5 sacks and a fumble recovery.

Thomas was slated to become a restricted free agent next week, but the two-year deal keeps him in Seattle through 2027. The Seahawks liked what they saw from Thomas last year and expect him to be a big part of their defense going forward.

Becoming a first-round pick in the NFL draft is more beginning than ending. The player arrives to pro football with promise and potential. Where it goes from there depends on many factors, internal and external.

For former NFL defensive tackle Robert Nkemdiche, a first-round pick of the Cardinals in 2016, his football career did not live up to expectations. His post-football career has now included multiple incidents with law enforcement.

Via TMZ.com, Nkemdiche was spotted by an officer at a grocery store in Georgia with “many large objects, square and rectangular shapes, consistent with concealed grocery items, inside his sweatpants.”

Before he was arrested, Nkemdiche apparently removed the items. The store did not want to press charges. Nkemdiche was nevertheless arrested when his name returned multiple outstanding warrants, including three in Georgia.

Nkemdiche had been the top recruit in the country as his high-school career ended. He played for Ole Miss, leaving early to enter the draft. His college career essentially ended after an incident that resulted in Nkemdiche breaking a window at an Atlanta hotel and eventually falling 15 feet, in an apparent effort to evade apprehension for marijuana possession.

In four years with the Cardinals, Nkemdiche appeared in 29 regular-season games, with six starts. In 2021, he played in eight games with the Seahawks.

Most recently, Nkemdiche played for the Edmonton Elks of the CFL. He had two sacks in four games before suffering an injury. He was released later in the season.

The Seahawks traded for wide receiver/returner Rashid Shaheed at the trade deadline. He proved to be a key acquisition.

Shaheed returned a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns in the regular season and had a 95-yard kickoff return in the postseason.

Shaheed, though, is scheduled for free agency. So, the 12 games he played, including the postseason, might be the extent of his time in Seattle.

Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that Shaheed and the Seahawks are not close to an extension, and the expectation is that the two-time Pro Bowler will hit free agency.

Shaheed has 153 receptions for 2,243 yards and 12 touchdowns in his four-year career to go along with three punt return touchdowns and a kickoff return touchdown.

He ranks 13th on PFT’s top-100 free agents.

The Rams have proposed multiple rule changes in the aftermath of the wacky two-point play in the Week 16 game at Seattle. Meeting with reporters on Tuesday, coach Sean McVay was asked what the Rams hope to accomplish.

“It’s a very rare play,” McVay said, via a transcript circulated by the team. “I’ve never been a part of a play like that, but it was accurately officiated. Basically what our proposal is trying to be able to do was get a tipped ball — when it’s a backward pass that’s actually tipped by the defense that goes past the line of scrimmage to fall under the same parameters of a fumble at the end of the half, under two minutes at the end of the game . . . on fourth downs or on PAT attempts or two-point attempts. It was basically trying to write it in a way that allowed it to fall under the same parameters of not being able to advance a fumble favorably like the Holy Roller play that the [Raiders] had years ago.

“That was basically the gist of it because I think everybody would agree. It’s not a huge deal. It doesn’t come up often, but it did affect us in that game. Now, did it affect us winning and losing? I’ll never make an excuse like that, but it was a play that I think most people would agree, when you tip a perimeter screen pass and it goes forward past the line of scrimmage, that shouldn’t be necessarily rewarded for a team falling on it.

“If it doesn’t go through, I’m not losing any sleep over it. It was just because it was an impactful play in the season. I think my feeling is even if I was on the other side, those are things that I think we would probably agree should fall under the same bucket as that. You have to write it in a way that makes it a little bit more complicated. Long story short, we were trying to get that play to be falling under the same parameters of not being able to advance a fumble in those types of situations even though it wasn’t considered a fumble because it was a backwards pass.”

The Rams have proposed a 40-second limit on the initiation of booth reviews, given the lengthy delay that preceded the announcement that the failed two-point conversion by the Seahawks was getting a second look. The Rams also have made a pair of proposals as to the substance of the play.

Under the first, the reversal of an on-field ruling of an incomplete pass to a backward pass that touched the ground with recovery beyond the spot of the backward pass by the team that threw the backward pass would result in the ball being placed at the spot of the backward pass.

Under the second, a backward pass that is deflected by either team and touches the ground would be treated like a fumble, when the play happens on fourth down, after the two-minute warning, or during a conversion attempt.

Either proposal would have wiped out running back Zach Charbonnet’s nonchalant recovery of the backward pass from Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold that was tipped and then bounced into the end zone.

Any of the proposals will require 24 votes from the NFL’s 32 teams to pass. Our guess? Even though it makes plenty of sense, it will be very difficult to get 75 percent of all teams to support it.

Maybe Stephen Ross really could get $15 billion for the Dolphins.

Per multiple reports, Ross will sell one percent of the Dolphins at a record valuation of $12.5 billion. It means that he’ll get $125 million for the wafer-thin slice of equity in the team.

Ross previously sold 13 percent of the team at deals based on an $8.1 billion valuation.

The latest piece will go to tech billionaire Lin Bin.

Ross, 85, intends to keep the team, with his family eventually inheriting the controlling interest.

The transaction will only help the Seahawks, which are currently for sale, land in the range reported last month by PFT: $9 billion to $11 billion. It could possibly put the final number north of that.

Two weeks ago, on the day the franchise-tag window opened, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reported that the Seahawks were “unlikely” to apply the franchise tag to Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III. On the day the window will close, Schefter reports that the Seahawks are “not expected” to tag Walker.

Whether the latest report counts as a new report (or whether the collective response should be, “Yeah, I know, I heard you the first time”), the Seahawks currently are “not expected” to tag Walker. Which technically leaves the door open for something unexpected.

If the unexpected doesn’t occur, Walker will become a free agent next week — unless he re-signs with the Seahawks. He’ll then be able to sign with any other team.

If he goes, he’ll join the small club of Super Bowl MVPs who parlayed their achievement into a new deal with a new team. The current list consists of Larry Brown after Super Bowl XXX, Desmond Howard after Super Bowl XXXI, and Dexter Jackson after Super Bowl XXXVII.

Walker rushed for 1,027 yards during the regular season. He finished with a flourish in the playoffs, with 376 rushing yards in three games and 135 in the Super Bowl.

If Walker goes, the Seahawks will need help at the position. Zach Charbonnet suffered a torn ACL during the divisional-round win over the 49ers. He underwent surgery 11 days ago.

The Seahawks tendered exclusive rights free agents Ty Okada and George Holani on Monday, the team announced.

They are the first moves as the Seahawks try to “run it back,” as General Manager John Schneider said at the Scouting Combine last week.

Holani and Okada are the Seahawks’ only two exclusive rights free agents, a designation for a player with two or fewer accrued seasons whose contract is set to expire. Once tendered a one-year offer, which is based on that player’s credited seasons, an exclusive rights free agent cannot negotiate with other teams.

Okada, who first joined the Seahawks as an undrafted free agent out of Montana State in 2023, appeared in only nine games with no starts over his first two seasons. He played all 17 games in 2025, including 11 starts, and recorded 65 tackles, three tackles for loss, one interception, six passes defensed, one fumble recovery and 1.5 sacks.

Holani, who signed as an undrafted free agent out of Boise State in 2024, appeared in 11 games during the 2025 season. He rushed for 73 yards and a touchdown on 22 regular-season carries before landing on injured reserve. He also scored a touchdown on special teams, recovering a kickoff in the end zone in a Week 2 win in Pittsburgh.

Holani returned from injured reserve in the postseason and stepped into the No. 2 running back role after Zach Charbonnet injured his knee in the divisional round. Holani played 47 offensive snaps in wins over the Rams and Patriots, while rushing for 10 yards on five carries and catching four passes for 34 yards.