John Schneider addresses Sam Howell trade

The Seahawks GM discusses the Sam Howell trade and what it means for Seattle’s QB room.

The Seattle Seahawks made a significant move on Thursday, trading third- and fifth-round picks in exchange for former Washington Commanders quarterback Sam Howell, as well as a fourth- and sixth-round pick. Originally drafted in the fifth round back in 2022, Howell was the starter in Washington in 2023, but a new coaching staff and new ownership group is ready to rebuild and likely will take a quarterback at the top of this year’s draft.

Howell’s arrival means the Seahawks once again have two QBs on the roster after Drew Lock left in free agency for the New York Giants. In his weekly radio spot on Seattle Sports 710, Seahawks GM John Schneider had what is his firmest commitment to date of Geno Smith being Seattle’s starter.

“Geno is the guy and Sam will be backing him up,” Schneider said (quotes via Seattle Sports 710). “… (Howell) is a competitive guy … I’m sure there’s competition, but as of right now it’s not like we’re signing him to go and compete with Geno to be the starter.”

So the Seahawks have their backup, but why Howell? Schneider brought up his 300+ yard, two-touchdown performance against the Seahawks last November, and noted their interest in him since he was at North Carolina.

“The day we played here, that hit home how tough he was, how strong he was,” Schneider said. “Keeping his eyes downfield, finding the open receiver and, yeah, shoot, almost winning the game there at the end. … We got great reviews on him and we loved him coming out of college. We’re happy to get him in the mix.”

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“He’s 23 years old and has 18 starts in the league already, and he’s the same age as like (Jayden) Daniels from LSU and (South Carolina QB Spencer) Rattler and (UW Huskies QB Michael) Penix, and he’s a year younger than (Oregon QB) Bo Nix. We were just really excited to be able to acquire him. We know he’s a serious dude and into it, he works his tail off.”

The other storyline here is Drew Lock, whose one-year contract with the Giants is worth up to $5 million. According to Schneider, the Giants persuaded him by saying he’d have a chance to compete with Daniel Jones for the starting job.

“They basically sold him on the opportunity to compete to be the starter,” Schneider said. “And he felt like it was the right opportunity. He looked at Baker Mayfield’s opportunity last year and felt that this could be something similar.”

New York local media reporting and Lock himself seem to indicate otherwise, but it’s probably more likely that Lock could replace Jones midseason for performance reasons than Smith.