• There was a lot of drama before in Seattle, and the hard truth is, a couple of hours before kickoff, even the Seahawks themselves didn’t know what they were going to do at quarterback.
At the walkthrough the night before the game, I’m told, Drew Lock and Geno Smith split the reps right down the middle. And while Sean Mannion was elevated from the practice squad, the decision on Smith’s status wasn’t set in stone until when the team turned its inactive list 90 minutes before kickoff.
For players at any position, dealing with that roller coaster of emotions going into such a crucial game would be a challenge. At quarterback, even more so. And one reason why Smith and Lock were able to handle it as they did was because of their relationship with each other.
That was on display after Lock unleashed a game-winning dime to Jaxon Smith-Njigba to beat the Eagles, and gestured to the sideline like he was holstering a couple of six-shooters. Smith repeated the gesture back to him. The sequence reminded me of two summers ago, when Lock and Smith (former Broncos and Jets draft picks, respectively) were competing with each other to replace Russell Wilson as Seahawks starter.
Pete Carroll had once mentioned to me the two had a kind of kinship after being given up on by other teams. So I asked the two quarterbacks about it, and they confirmed that.
“Without a doubt,” Lock said then. “I feel like both have a grasp of this game and what goes into it, not just the football side, the feelings, the emotions, the Mondays after a game, we’ve both felt very similar things and we can both appreciate each other for that. Being able to talk to him after plays, being able to talk to him after practice, my mindset and his mindset I know is the same. I’m only in my fourth year of training camp situations, but your mindset, you’ve just grown as a quarterback, you know what it’s like.
“Somedays, the defense is gonna get you. My rookie year, and I’m sure his rookie year, I’d let that eat me alive after they beat us, but they’re good, too, and they make plays, and they’re getting paid to do it, too. It’s cool to have a quarterback room where we’ve had the same experiences, we’ve grown into the quarterbacks we are now from similar situations, it’s fun to be around.”
“There’s a definite connection,” Smith added. “The thing about Drew I like is he’s another competitive guy— competitive. He’s got great ability. I don’t know why he went in the second round, but he’s got first-round talent. I can’t speak for what happened when he was in Denver, but what I will say is he’s always prepared, prepares the way he’s supposed to, and, like I said, when he’s out competing, you can see, you can feel his competitiveness.”
I thought it was pretty cool at the time. And it was pretty cool to see how it’s grown, too, and how it allowed the two to navigate a challenging situation Monday without an issue.
