Reports: Ex-Seahawks QB Geno Smith traded back to his original team

Four years after resurrecting his career with the Seattle Seahawks, quarterback Geno Smith is going back to where it started.

According to multiple reports Tuesday by NFL insiders including ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Las Vegas Raiders are trading Smith to the New York Jets.

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Smith, 35, is going back to New York along with a seventh-round pick in next month’s NFL Draft, with the Raiders picking up a sixth-round pick in the upcoming draft from the Jets in exchange.

It was reported last week that the Raiders planned to release Smith if they were unable to trade him before the official start of the new NFL league year Wednesday. He played one season with Las Vegas following a trade just over a year ago from Seattle, who signed Sam Darnold in free agency to replace Smith and went on to win its second Super Bowl in franchise history.

Smith was reunited with former Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll in Vegas, but the reunion didn’t go as planned. The Raiders went 3-14 and let Carroll go at the end of his first and only season with the team.

Smith’s numbers dipped in 2025, as he threw for 3,025 yards and 19 touchdowns with a 67.4% completion rate, and had a league-high 17 interceptions despite missing two games due to injury. Smith was also sacked 55 times while playing behind the Raiders’ shaky offensive line. His 34.1 QBR was 27th among quarterbacks in the NFL, which came a year after he was 21st with a 50.4 QBR and three years after he was seventh at 62.8.

The Raiders hired Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak late last month to replace Carroll as head coach, and are expected to make Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza of the national champion Indiana Hoosiers the No. 1 pick in April’s NFL Draft.

With the Jets, Smith joins a QB room that includes Justin Fields, who started nine games last season for New York.

NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport shared details from a text from Smith following news of the trade, who is “excited” about the idea of returning to the Big Apple.

Text from a pumped #Jets QB Geno Smith: "Complete full circle moment back to where it all began. 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."

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 10, 2026

Smith was selected in former second round of the 2013 draft by the Jets out of West Virginia in 2013, and he was an immediate starter. Unfortunately, he did not succeed in the role and was saddled with the label of being a draft bust as he eventually turned to a career as a backup with the Giants, Chargers and Seahawks. But following Seattle’s trade of Russell Wilson in 2022, Smith won the team’s starting QB job and resurrected his career, winning Comeback Player of the Year and leading the NFL in completion rate in 2022 in the first of two straight Pro Bowl seasons.

Though Smith had a strong tenure with the Seahawks, they were middling team throughout it. Seattle went 27-23 in regular season games that Smith started from 2022-24, and lost his one playoff game with the team. The Seahawks traded Smith to Las Vegas for a 2025 third-round pick, which they used on Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe. Smith signed a two-year, $75 million extension with the Raiders following the trade.

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