The Las Vegas Raiders had been reportedly prepared to satisfy Matthew Stafford’s contract requests to accumulate him earlier than he and the Los Angeles Rams agreed to a reworked deal.
Nonetheless, Professional Soccer Discuss’s Mike Florio shared on Monday morning that the Raiders have not but agreed to a contract extension with Geno Smith although Las Vegas will formally land Smith through a commerce with the Seattle Seahawks when the brand new league 12 months opens on Wednesday.
Florio additionally speculated that the Raiders may look to seize Smith’s eventual substitute through the 2025 NFL Draft just like how the Atlanta Falcons dealt with their quarterback scenario final offseason.
“There’s an opportunity Smith is a short-term insurance coverage coverage on the place,” Florio wrote in regards to the Raiders. “The Falcons did it final 12 months, giving Kirk Cousins $90M totally assured — and one other $10M vesting quickly — earlier than choosing Michael Penix, Jr. with the eighth total decide within the 2024 draft.”
After all, Cousins did not know when he signed a four-year, $180M contract that included $100M assured to affix Atlanta roughly 12 months in the past that the membership may spend a first-round draft decide on Penix or a unique quarterback final spring. The Falcons named Penix their starter after Week 15 of this previous season, and Cousins is now hoping to be launched so he can change into a QB1 for a unique membership.
Florio added that Raiders normal supervisor John Spytek and minority proprietor Tom Brady may take “a deeper dive over the subsequent six weeks at” quarterbacks accessible on this 12 months’s draft. Particularly, some have predicted that Las Vegas may take Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders if he falls to the Raiders on the sixth total decide on the night time of April 24. How Smith would react to such a growth if he’s nonetheless with out a contract extension at the moment is unknown.
Smith is about to enter the ultimate 12 months of the three-year contract he signed in March 2023.
Per Professional Soccer Reference, Smith ended the 2024 season ranked twenty fourth within the NFL with a 53.8 adjusted QBR. Solely Cousins and Baker Mayfield of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers tossed extra interceptions (16 every) than Smith (15).
Briefly, it is comprehensible that the Raiders is probably not in any hurry to present Smith his desired extension forward of the draft.
