Seahawks trade Geno Smith to Raiders: Ranking Seattle’s QB options after making surprising deal with Las Vegas

With less than a week to go until the start of NFL free agency, the Seattle Seahawks are suddenly in a very precarious position: They don’t have a starting quarterback. 

Geno Smith was Seattle’s starter for the past three seasons, but he won’t be returning in 2025 after the Seahawks made the surprising decision to trade him to the Las Vegas Raiders on Friday. According to Sports Illustrated, Smith wanted a contract extension that would pay him at least $45 million per year, but the Seahawks didn’t want to commit more than $35 million per season to the 34-year-old. 

You usually don’t see a team trade their starting quarterback right before the start of free agency unless they already have an idea of who’s going to replace him, but that appears to be what just happened here. In 2022, the Seahawks traded Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos, but that move didn’t come with a huge risk because Smith was already in Seattle to take over the starting job. 

This time around, there’s definitely some risk because there’s no obvious replacement. The Seahawks could turn to Sam Howell, who’s currently the only quarterback on the roster, but the more likely scenario is that they end up adding a starting quarterback in free agency. 

With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few of their top options:  

After leading the Minnesota Vikings to a 14-3 record last season, Darnold is arguably the best quarterback in this year’s free agent class. He’s coming off a career season that saw him rank fifth in the NFL in both passing yards (4,319) and touchdown passes (35). Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald got a first-hand look at Darnold back in Week 16 during a 27-24 loss to the Vikings. In that game, Darnold threw for 246 yards and three touchdowns, including a 39-yard game-winning score to Justin Jefferson with under four minutes left to play. 

One connection that Darnold has with Seattle is that he’s familiar with Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak. He was the 49ers’ passing game coordinator during a 2023 season where Darnold served as the backup quarterback in San Francisco. According to The Athletic, the Seahawks are already targeting Darnold. 

This could be an intriguing option for the Seahawks and that’s mostly because Cousins has spent a lot of time with new Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak. During Cousins’ six seasons in Minnesota, Kubiak was there for three of them, including two as QB coach (2019-20) and one as offensive coordinator (2021). During Kubiak’s lone season as Minnesota’s offensive coordinator, Cousins threw the second-most touchdown passes in his career (33) and he also had the lowest interception percentage of his career. 

Cousins is stuck in Atlanta right now, but he clearly doesn’t want to be there. If the Falcons aren’t willing to cut him before the start of free agency, the Seahawks might have to make a trade with Atlanta to land Cousins. The veteran does have a no-trade clause, but he would likely waive it for a chance to be a starting quarterback. 

The downside with Cousins is that he’s 36 and he’s coming off a season where he got benched. However, he did say his poor play in 2024 was due to injuries, so it’s possible he could look much better in 2025 since he’ll be fully healed

Klint Kubiak has apparently been fascinated by Fields for some time, which could make the former Steelers quarterback a name to watch out for here. Back in 2021, the Vikings were actually hoping to land Fields in the NFL Draft with the 14th overall pick, but the Bears traded up to get him at 11th overall. 

After missing out on Fields, Kubiak and the Vikings ended up sticking with Cousins as their starter and he ended up going 8-8.

Kubiak didn’t get Fields in 2021, but he now has a chance to get him four years later and he might be interested after an impressive 2024 season where Fields went 4-2 as a starter for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Also, Fields might be intrigued by the idea of heading to Seattle because it would reunite with him with Seahawks QB coach Andrew Janocko, who was Fields’ QB coach in Chicago for two years (2022-23). And let’s not forget, Fields went to Ohio State with Jaxson Smith-Njigba, who led the Seahawks in receiving yards last season. 

During an interview in 2024, Smith-Njigba made it clear that he thinks Fields can be a QB1 in the NFL. 

Smith-Njigba might already be recruiting Fields to Seattle. 

At this point, Rodgers seems like a long shot here, but if anyone is going to take a risk on him, it would be John Schneider. The Seahawks general manager spent eight years in the Packers’ front office, and during five of those seasons, Rodgers was on the team. The downside of Rodgers is that he’s 41 and he struggled at times during the 2024 season, so it seems unlikely that he would land in Seattle unless he was willing to take an extremely team-friendly deal. 

5. Draft a quarterback to compete with Sam Howell

The Seahawks already have a QB on their roster with starting experience, and that’s Howell, who started 17 games for the Commanders in 2023. The Seahawks could simply draft a quarterback and have the rookie compete with Howell. With Seattle picking at 18th overall, it likely wouldn’t be able to get one of the top quarterbacks in the draft, but could use a Day 2 or Day 3 pick on someone like Jaxson Dart, Kyle McCord, Jalen Milroe or Quinn Ewers.