I don’t know what is in store for the Seattle Seahawks for the rest of this season, and I have no idea what is going to happen next year. I think there is a little cloud of mystery hovering over this team on many levels.

For the remainder of this season, I can see them winning out these last three games, and finding themselves in the playoffs. I can also see them losing out. I can see something in between.

I also have no idea if Carroll is back next year, or not. Nor am I certain Jody Allen will be owning the team when they kick off next Fall, or someone like Jeff Bezos will.

As I look at these Seattle quarterbacks, I have no idea if Geno Smith, or Drew Lock, or some other quarterback will be the starter next year. The only thing I know is that Geno Smith, barring injury, is going to start these final three games, and the chips will then fall where they may.

It was as fun of an experience as I have had in a long while as seeing Drew Lock engineer that improbable game winning drive on Monday Night Football against the Philadelphia Eagles. I was so much in the after glow of that moment, that I wrote the next morning that, as a fan, I wanted to see more of Lock moving forward these last few games.

Pete Carroll stepped all over that idea immediately, though. Geno Smith is his starting quarterback.

Pete Carroll is not presently in the mood to see what untapped potential there is with Drew Lock. If that was his deep interest all along, he would have made Lock the starter last year, and he would have been willing to take the lumps that go along with bringing along a raw quarterback.

I think after the Seahawks made the deal with Denver that included Lock, Carroll had it in his mind that he needed to get Geno Smith back into the program. I suspect that Geno had shown Carroll and Shane Waldron enough in his fill in duty for Russell Wilson in 2021 for them to believe he had a pretty good grasp on this offense. Therefore, I don’t believe there was ever any fair quarterback competition during the training camp of 2022, and all along, it was going to be Geno Smith’s job to lose, and so far, he has not lost it.

You can say that this quarterback handling by Carroll hasn’t been fair to Drew Lock, and I get it. Initially, I had it in my own mind that they should give the gig to Drew in order to see what’s there, but that didn’t happen, and I chose to move off of it.

Pamela Anderson should have dated me instead of Tommy Lee in the nineties, but that didn’t happen. No use crying over spilled milk.

Folks need to be realistic here when it comes to Pete Carroll and these quarterbacks. Pete Carroll wants to win ball games.

When he dealt away pouting Russell Wilson, I think he took it personally. He didn’t want 2022 to be a losing season while watching Russ potentially win in Denver just to see what’s there with Drew Lock. He wanted to go with the quarterback who he believed gave Seattle the best chance to win games. In the midst of that season, I think Geno Smith legitimately surprised him with his play, and further won him over.

As much as I think it is interesting to see what is there with Lock in these last handful of games, I think the quarterback who gives Seattle the best chance as winning out these last three games is Geno Smith. I think that had we had a healthy Geno Smith playing against a bad Philadelphia secondary on Monday night, Seattle would have likely walked away with a more comfortable win and a big night out of Geno Smith. That’s what my gut tells me.

I think Seattle’s game plan for Drew Lock was a simplified one. I think they asked him to take the safe stuff and to not chase after anything big that wasn’t there. I think they really wanted to get the run game going to help him out. I think Carroll was probably just hoping for the game to stay close enough in the fourth that maybe they could pull something off at the end.

I think Drew did an incredible job pulling off that final drive when he did, and I was so impressed by what had happened that he instantaneously forced me to rethink my ideas about him as a quarterback. I had previously written him off as any potential starter. I don’t feel that way about him now.

But I also think that the reality of the Seahawk situation right now is that Geno Smith gives Seattle the best chance at winning games, and I think that salvaging this up and down season and making the playoffs is the number one goal in Pete Carroll’s mind. Therefore, I think it’s time to bury the idea of starting Drew Lock more because it just isn’t going to happen.

The only way Lock starts again is if Geno gets injured again, or if they drop the next two games, and are eliminated from the playoffs by the time they close out the season in Arizona, and Carroll just decides to give Drew Lock a final look. Maybe in that latter scenario, Carroll acquiesces to the front office’s desires to look at Lock further before deciding what to do at quarterback in the soon to be offseason.

So, there we have it with these two quarterbacks. You might like it, or you might hate it, but this is what it is.

Instead of choosing a side of any quarterback argument here in Seattle, I just want to wrap my big ole arms around both of these passers, and love them up some. Both of these guys deserve to be embraced by the fans here, I think.

What I like most about these two quarterbacks is their relationship to each other. I believe Drew Lock when he says Geno Smith is one of his closest friends and strongest supporters.

We saw that on Monday Night Football when Drew threw the game winning touchdown and did his little signature celebration, and Geno did it back to him on the sidelines. The whole moment is a clip that has now gone very viral and it is by far my favorite thing surrounding the Seattle Seahawks this year.

In those short moments captured by cameras, we bore witness to their brotherly love that is probably pretty rare in quarterback rooms, if we are all being honest. I don’t recall Joe Montana doing that with Steve Young thirty years ago, or Brett Farve sharing a moment like that with Aaron Rodgers, either.

I’m not saying that Geno Smith and Drew Lock are those type of Hall of Fame guys, either, so pipe down if you were thinking that. In fact, I still think it’s unlikely that either of these two quarterbacks are going to end up as a long term solution to the quarterback situation here in Seattle, but that is just me.

I am just saying that these are our guys right now, and I think their vibe with each other is special. In fact, I think it is so special that I feel like it is a vibe this locker room can ride with.

The players on this team should now know they have two quarterbacks capable of starting and winning some games. That can breed some confidence. That can have you playing looser and with a little extra swag on the field.

I am going to dare to say that I think these Seattle Seahawks needed Monday Night to happen, and needed to see Drew Lock throw that perfect dart to Jaxon Smith Ngijba for the go ahead score. Further more, I think they really needed to see how both of these quarterbacks shared the moment with each other.

There has been a weird dark cloud hovering over this team for some weeks now. I think the whole weirdness with Jamal Adams has been symptomatic of a problem of some players being out for themselves and not their team mates. I don’t think Jamal has necessarily been the only player acting selfishly, either. He’s just been the most visible.

But with Drew Lock and Geno Smith, I think we have leaders showing the team how to set shit aside and support each other. I am positive that both players feel like they should be the starter. They should.

Geno was practically begging Carroll to start him even though team doctors were saying he should sit it out. I am sure Drew Lock feels like he has more than shown the team that he can be the guy moving forward, if they need him to do it.

Only one of these guys gets to start, though, and Carroll has made is clear to the world who his QB1 is. I think maybe one of the most valuable things that Drew Lock can offer this team for the remainder of the year is to continue throwing his full support behind Geno Smith. I think if the shoe was on the other foot, he would want Geno doing that for him. I suspect Geno would.

I think their friendship is that legit. People can doubt it, if they want, but I think they share so much commonality that I would suspect that it is very likely they will be closely bonded for life.

I think probably what has galvanized their bonds is that they have been in this very odd position together of being quarterbacks tasked to replace the legend of Russell Wilson, and in that process, having the entire world doubting them from the get go. Both players were high second round picks quickly cast off by their teams early in their careers without ever giving any real chance to develop as starters, and by fate, they found themselves here duking it out for the starter gig with everyone laughing at them on sports radio and social media, and saying Seattle needed to go after Baker Mayfield, instead. I think it is fair to say that they have both been put through a blender together.

Now they comprise of a quarterback room that has an opportunity to see Seattle in the playoffs for a second straight year post Russell Wilson. You can be up or down on the Seahawks right now, if you want to be, but you have to tip the hat to these guys for carrying through under an extremely tough microscope.

I think there can be something galvanizing in that, and special in its own way. As I sit days before the Christmas holiday, I think it’s cool to reflect on Drew Lock and Geno Smith some.

When I started writing this piece, I had it in my mind to touch on the Jamal Adams horse crap, and the recent speculations by way of Albert Breer as to whether Pete Carroll might retire after the season, but I just kept playing that viral clip of Drew and Geno celebrating together on MNF over and over again, and well, sometimes something just feels so damn good that I cannot shake it off. Today, I am just here to celebrate Drew Lock and Geno Smith.

I like these two quarterbacks for Seattle. Who knows if they will both be back next year. I’m not going to future trip on that right now, though.

I like these guys for Seattle right now, and I am excited if this win against the Eagles will spark something special to close this season out right, and see this team back into the playoffs.

Whatever happens, I will future trip later, and probably spend the whole offseason doing it. For now, I am eager to see if this team is ready to ride some really good vibes right now, and I am grateful for Geno and Drew showing us the way.

Go Hawks.