I woke up Sunday morning with perfect clarity in anticipation of the game between the Seattle Seahawks and Washington Commanders. I wanted the Seahawks to win, and I wanted Geno Smith to have a really good bounce back game.

Washington, I feared was going to be tougher than many the casual fan would anticipate. They hung tight with Philadelphia, and it felt like they were on a bit of a roll, but these were my two big asks for the day; a Seahawks win, and Geno playing well. I am happy to write that I got them both.

Fans are kinda funny, and handle wins and losses differently. After all, we are all our own individuals, and we each handle failure and success in different ways.

For myself, I just want the job to get done, and I don’t need style points on how to accomplish the task at hand. During the Seahawks road to the Super Bowl in 2013, the Seahawks won a number of games ugly, and I was good with it. “Just get the W” is sorta my mantra.

So, when Seattle sputtered a bit, offensively, in the first half of this game, I had this feeling like they were going to get it together more in the second half. I saw receivers coming open in coverage where the passes from Geno looked off, but also maybe the receivers didn’t adjust their patterns the way he was anticipating. Seattle runs an offense that is a bit more dependent on timing, and receivers making adjustments to coverages. To the naked eye of the casual fan, it can look like the quarterback made a bad throw, but in reality, it was up to the receiver to break to that spot.

This is what I think many inside the anti Geno Smith portion of the Seahawk fanbase don’t understand. For them, Geno Smith has next to no margin of error, either.

In this game, he threw for a career best 369 yards, 2 touchdowns, no picks, and he completed over 65% of his passes. That is a good day for any NFL quarterback, and on the team’s social media post, I commented that is was a superb bounce back game for Geno. Here is how one gentleman chose to respond this Geno Smith affirming comment of mine.

“.. are you high or drunk? Both? Nice stats maybe, but that doesn’t tell the truth of how he played. He’s a terrible QB and if you think he gives this team a chance to win against the 49ers or any team vying for a championship, this team will have a repeat of last weekends game. He was s backup for a decade for a reason. We are seeing why. But hey, he didn’t have a turnover today.”

So, first off; no, I was not high or drunk. I actually haven’t had a drop of alcohol since 2010, thank you very much.

Secondly, those are actually pretty darn good stats.

Thirdly, this guy’s typos are every bit as bad as mine.

Lastly, wow. I don’t know the mental or emotional state of this dude, but I hope he’s not the type to backhand a young child across the face for spilling milk at the breakfast table because the vitriol he chose to go after me and dump on Geno Smith makes him come across as a total dickhead in life.

But this is the type of vitriol that I think Geno Smith kinda has to deal with as QB1 of the Seattle Seahawks with a loud, angry minority portion of the Seahawks fanbase on social media, online team fan-pages, forums, and on sports radio. For them, I think it pains them to pay him any sort of compliment, and when someone else does it, they must be a moron. They want to over inflate any mistake he makes, and deemphasize anything positive he does. He cannot possibly be the long term starter for Seattle. That guy is either Drew Lock (?!), or someone playing in college right now.

Geno Smith may or may not be a long term answer at quarterback for the Seahawks. I am not here to say that he is, or isn’t. I’m here to say that he is the guy they have now, so why beat him down?

He’s not a terrible quarterback. I think he’s a decent mid tier starting quarterback in the league, a solid Alex Smith, if you will. He’s a quarterback who guided Seattle to the playoffs last year, and was voted into the Pro Bowl by his peers in the league who probably know a lot more about quarterback play than some angry dude who needed to come at me on the internet.

Presently, Geno Smith has quarterbacked Seattle to a 6-3 record, and has led them to two come from behind victories in the past month. Excuse me, if I choose to have his back as the starting quarterback of my favorite team, and decide to heap some positive praise on the fella whenever he does good.

On the whole, I think Geno played pretty well in this one. He was clutch when they needed him to be, he didn’t turn the ball over, he threw the ball away when he needed to do it, and he was generally pretty accurate when the timing was right with his receivers. He managed the game as Pete Carroll would have him, and Pete said as much as that in his post game presser.

The only blemish on his day was the intentional grounding penalty he took towards the end of the first half that took a field goal opportunity away from the team to potentially put them in the lead. Outside of that mishap, I thought he delivered the game I wanted to see from him. Bravo.

The other offensive guy much maligned by fans who had himself a big game was DK Metcalf. When this team desperately needed someone at the end to come up with big time catches, it was this guy.

DK Metcalf is a force of nature. There are not a lot of living breathing human beings on the planet built like this guy playing wide receiver in the NFL. His catch and run at the end of the game, barreling over defenders was one of the most beastmode things I have seen out of a Seattle Seahawk player since Beastmode himself circa 2014. Seattle had mere seconds left on the clock at the midpoint of the field, no timeouts left, and they needed someone to haul in a pass and get it close to the thirty yard line for a chance at a game winning field goal. DK caught the pass at around the Washington 37 yard line, and barreled people over for superhuman YAC to the Washington 23 yard line for a much easier game winning kick by Jason Myers. Tyler Lockett, and Jaxon Smith Njigba, as good as they are, do not make this play.

If it wasn’t for Geno Smith, who some fans need to trash on, and DK Metcalf, who some fans want to deal away, the Seattle Seahawks probably do not win this game against the Commanders. Sam Howell started finding success against the Seahawks defense late, and with that, Washington felt like the team with the momentum to win. In many ways, as I watched in the stands, it felt like it was going to go down like that annoying game against the Raiders last year when Seattle blew a lead late, and gave the game up in overtime. Geno Smith and DK said “fuck that” though, and took this game over at the end for the win.

In the spirit of Bill Maher, I have two new rules I would like to put forth to Seahawk fans. One is to stop talking about benching Geno Smith for Drew Lock, and the other is to stop the trade DK Metcalf rubbish. The Seahawks have a decent starting quarterback, and they have a freak of nature receiver. Teams do not bench decent quarterbacks when they have a winning record, and good teams generally don’t trade away rare offensive weapons and get better. How is that trading away of AJ Brown working out for the Tennessee Titans these days?

Onto other great bright spots in this game.

Seattle has two super cool young running backs, and Shane Waldron chose to finally get them both involved more than in recent weeks, and I think that paid off pretty well. K9 had the flashiest play of the day with a big time NFL catch and touchdown run for 64 yards, and Zach Charbonnet provided explosive inside running for 44 yards and a 7.3 yard average. Getting these two more involved makes life easier for Geno, so keep doing this Shane Waldron.

Boye Mafe collected another sack and now has set a franchise record for seven sacks in seven consecutive games. Much of the fanfare around this defense is directed towards rookie corner Devon Witherspoon and rightly so, but Mafe looks like he’s on the verge of stardom. This is a huge deal for the future of this franchise of this proves the case.

Speaking of Spoon, the dude was a playmaking machine in the secondary against Washington. He kept Terry McLaurin fairly quiet, had multiple passes defensed, created pressures on blitzes and forced a fumble. Spoon plays football like Adam Sandler’s Water Boy character. He’s a 6-0 180 pound holy terror on the football field, and he’s just getting started. I’ve never seen a cornerback like him, and I find that the so damn exciting.

It was also cool to see newly acquired Leonard Big Cat Williams get his first sack as a Seahawk. It was also really cool to see Dre’Mont Jones get a sack, as well. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love it when defensive tackles get sacks. It just makes my heart go pitter patter extra.

Also, also, Jason Myers is a football kicking Jesse!

What I didn’t love seeing was the long gains up the sidelines that the Seahawk defense gave up to Brian Robinson catching in the flats. Whatever the defense was doing on those plays, don’t have them do it again, Clint Hurtt! Fix this issue!

How good are these Seattle Seahawks for real, though? Is this the question you are asking?

I think they are a really promising young team. I think they have a lot of young talent who are showing signs of being really quality players in this league, and that is exciting. I don’t think they are built up like San Francisco is, or Philly, or Baltimore, or even Dallas. Those are strong veteran teams with great players in their primes. I think Seattle is probably another year or two away from that, if all continues to trend well through draft and development.

The agro keyboard warrior who responded to me about Geno pointed out his grave doubts about how Seattle (with Geno) will match up against some of these teams on the remainder of the season. I think the truth is, if you put Brock Purdy or Dak Prescott on this Seahawk team, they would probably still be sitting at 6-3 today, and folks would be saying how Seattle doesn’t have a great quarterback situation, and the schedule looks daunting. If think if you put Geno on the 49ers squad, they would still be torching through the league.

But I am more patient about these Seahawks than some others. That is how I deal as a fan. I am seeing young promising talent develop, and that is a good thing for me. I see Geno doing enough of what he needs to do to run this offense right enough for them to win games, and I am good with that.

Before the season started, I saw a potential 10-7 team. I still see them as such. Of the eight remaining games they have left, I feel like they have a really good shot at getting four more wins, and if all break well for them, maybe more Ws.

I don’t care how those wins happen, either. I don’t need style points. Finding ways to win is how to develop a strong winning mindset for a promising young collective. That’s what is more important to me at this stage of the team’s post Russell Wilson rebuild. Anything more would be bonus.

Win or lose, though, I am here for them, either way.

I got your back, Geno Smith. You, too, DK.

Go Hawks.