Pro Bowl safety Quandre Diggs took to social media to weigh in on the Geno Smith debate raging among fans.
The 2024 season of the Seattle Seahawks is not yet officially over, however, postseason hopes and dreams died during Sunday Night Football when the Washington Commanders upended the Atlanta Falcons in overtime.
With that, discussion among many Seahawks fans has already turned to the offseason and the turnover it will bring. Front and center of the discussion is, of course, Geno Smith and his cap hit, currently slated to be $38.5M, but which is likely to increase once Week 18 is in the books and the regular season officially finished.
The debate is largely the same as it has been for the past three years. Some say Geno is the victim of circumstance, playing behind a young and inexperienced offensive line, while playing in a very limited offensive system for an offensive coordinator who seems out of his depth in his first season in the NFL. On the flip side are those who are adamant that Geno is the issue, and he is the reason there is a very real possibility the Seahawks will finish the 2024 campaign at 9-8, an identical record to that of each of the past two seasons.
In looking at the upcoming offseason, and with the debate about Smith and his value to the team raging on social media, Michael-Shawn Dugar of The Athletic queried social media users of their desires regarding the position. The results were a mixture of the usual suspects, without a true consensus emerging.
There are over 500 replies here and they essentially spell out how difficult it would be for Seattle to immediately upgrade at QB (and fix everything else).
My unofficial tally of the most common replies: Sam Darnold, Kirk Cousins, Jalen Milroe and Dillon Gabriel. https://t.co/f3Hids36XE
— Dugar, Michael-Shawn (@MikeDugar) December 30, 2024
However, Dugar’s post received one reply from someone with intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the team, and with some insight that many fans can agree with.
they never look at the real problem and it’s been a problem for awhile.
— Nino (@qdiggs6) December 30, 2024
Many interpreted this message from former Seahawks safety Quandre Diggs as a shot at the Seattle offensive line, while others took it as a criticism of general manager John Schneider. Either way, given Schneider’s responsibility for the offensive line, at the end of the day responsibility for the offensive line rests with Schneider.
Of particular issue has been the continuous changes to the offensive scheme, the personnel and the offensive line coach. In 2024 the Seahawks were on their fourth offensive line coach since 2017, going from Tom Cable to Mike Solari to Andy Dickerson to Scott Huff, with similar results across the entirety of the timeline. That would seem to hint at the idea that the personnel are more likely to be the issue rather than the coaching, which means the front office executive who no longer has Pete Carroll to blame when personnel decisions go sour has the finger of blame pointing straight at him.
How much change comes to the franchise over the offseason remains to be seen, however, what is clear is that Quandre Diggs doesn’t believe that Geno Smith is a part of the problem.