RENTON, Wash. — Geno Smith walked off the indoor practice field toward his locker room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a remote video camera mounted in the hallway.
He began doing a comical, side-to-side shuffle dance into the camera. There was no music, just Smith dancing.
As the quarterback finished his impromptu TikTok-able moment, wide receiver Laquon Treadwell danced, too — with his smoothie in his hand.
Then Pete Carroll came zooming down the hall and around the corner. On a scooter.
Yes, Seattle’s 71-year-old coach had his Air Monarchs balanced on a kick scooter.
Carroll always creates a fun environment for this team. He has free-throw contests on a regulation hoop he had installed in the meeting room; they keep score between the offense and the defense on an actual scoreboard in the auditorium, with the theme from Space Jam roaring with the players. He’s had Drake visit a Seahawks practice. He’s had Kendrick Lamar break down a team huddle after another practice. World-renowned astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson has been a guest at practice, too.
But this week, the Seahawks (9-8) have been as loose and fun-seeking as they have before a game in years.
Why not? They just looked over a cliff, saw their season about to crash to an end — then rallied late to beat the Rams in overtime AND got Detroit to improbably win at Green Bay later Sunday night to steal the NFC’s final playoff spot.
“Nobody expected us to be in the playoffs,” defensive captain and Pro Bowl safety Quandre Diggs said Wednesday. “So the last two weeks we’ve been like: What do we really have to lose?
“Nobody’s giving us a shot. Even the last week of the season, everybody was like, ‘Oh, the Seahawks have a 30% chance of making the playoffs.’
“For us, we just continue to do our thing. Dance at practice, and have fun. And enjoy the moments. Those moments are all we can ask for after...especially seeing what happened with Damar Hamlin last week. For us, it’s like, you’ve got to enjoy these moments, because you might ever get these opportunities again.
“We’re just being the Seahawks. Pete lets us have fun and do our thing.”
On Saturday the Seahawks play a playoff game, at rolling San Francisco (13-4). It’s a game no one outside of their own Dance Party thought was possible for them this season.
The team that sent away franchise cornerstones Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner on the same day in March — then named Smith, a seven-year journeyman NFL backup to run the team in August — is back in the NFC’s postseason for the 10th time in 13 seasons Carroll’s been Seattle’s coach.
The Seahawks’ us-against-the-world, everyone-doubted-us approach to this season has turned fun.
“I honestly think everybody is just more free,” co-captain and eighth-year veteran wide receiver Tyler Lockett said. “You don’t have to be uptight. You don’t have to be tense.
“Obviously, we are going into a playoff game, and, it’s like, you could really make it like, ‘Oh, my gosh! It’s the playoffs! We’ve got to...’ But it’s different when everybody is telling you’ve got to win or it’s a bust-type season. Or when...”
Lockett starting giggling.
“...people thought we were going to win four games,” he said through his laugh. “I guess one dude thought we were going to win zero.”
He laughed again.
Oh, yes, these Seahawks have kept the receipts.
“For us to be here, I keep saying: We don’t really have anything to lose,” Lockett said. “We’re just going to go out there and have fun, go out there and play. And I feel like we are getting better each and every week.
“We saw what type of offense we could be early in the season. Defense is starting to do great things, stopping the run, being able to get us the ball. ...
“It’s kind of pointless for us to try to talk to the young guys and say, ‘Hey, man, it’s the playoffs. It’s this, this and this.’
“Nah, man. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Geno Smith, smack talkin’ wide receiver?
Smith, in particular, has been looser and joking more this week than he has all season. Saturday will be the 32-year-old 10-year veteran’s first playoff start.
Hearing and seeing him, you’d think Saturday will be a preseason game in August.
“Don’t make it more than what it is,” he said. “It’s another football game, another opportunity to go out there and compete.”
He said he’s always expected he’d get here, starting in the playoffs. That, he says, included after two failed seasons as the Jets’ starter, in 2013 and ‘14. He believed it after the seven subsequent seasons as a backup for four different teams. Even while in Seattle for the previous three seasons before this one, basically never playing as Wilson’s backup, until three games last season after Wilson missed time from finger surgery.
“Might have been like wishful thinking on my part, but I’ve always had that thought process that if I did get an opportunity that this is where we should be,” Smith said.
“But I don’t think we should be getting hyped up right now or acting like this is our end goal, because we have another goal in mind. So obviously, it starts just one game at a time, one play, one practice at a time, staying focused on, like I said, staying in the moment.
“But we know that we can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’re happy to be in the playoffs. There’s more to it. We’ve got to stay focused on that.’”
Smith also said: “I know when we play right, we can beat anybody.”
He broke three of Wilson’s team passing records this season, for completions (399), yards 4,282) and completion rate (69.76%). Smith’s 10 games with a 100-plus passer rating led the NFL en route to earning his first career Pro Bowl selection.
He didn’t get that for playing wide receiver.
Yet that’s where Smith was against the Los Angeles Rams last weekend, out wide against Rams All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey. Offensive coordinator Shane Waldron put the Seahawks in Wildcat formation, direct snaps to running back DeeJay Dallas instead of Smith, twice in the first half of Seattle’s must-win game to make the postseason.
On the second Wildcat snap, Smith committed a false-start penalty, an inexcusable gaffe for a wide receiv...er, quarterback.
What happened there?
“The problem was...,” Smith began, to laughter.
“I kind of tried to fix my feet at the last second. I was kind of talkin’ trash, and I kind of lost my balance. I’ve got to get better at that.”
Wait, a quarterback lined up at wide receiver was talking smack to one of the game’s best cornerbacks before the snap? About what?
“Yeah, yeah. Didn’t work out,” Smith said.
“Yeah, it was Ramsey. It was the match-up we were looking for, me on him.”
That prompted the biggest laughter at a Geno Smith press conference this season.
“Didn’t work out,” Smith said, still smiling. “We’ll come back to it.
“I was about to sauce him up.. I can’t let you guys know everything, as to the route.”
That was after Smith called Lockett “for a real-estate agent, I think he’s doing a great job playing at wide receiver.”
Can fun beat the 49ers?
All of this laughter doesn’t change the Seahawks’ mammoth task on Saturday, of course. They have to find a way to beat the 49ers. Their rivals have won 10 consecutive games. San Francisco has the league’s top-ranked defense. It mauled Seattle physically along the line of scrimmage in two wins during the regular season.
The Niners won 27-7 in week two in Santa Clara. The game wasn’t that close. Smith’s offense didn’t score; the Seahawks’ points came off Tariq Woolen’s blocked field goal fellow cornerback Michael Jackson returned for a touchdown.
After that game, Carroll and Waldron decided to stop limiting Smith to 5-yard throws and freed him to chuck many more deep passes. No one in the NFL had more over the final three months of the regular season.
Last month at Lumen Field the 49ers won 21-13 to clinch the NFC West. That rematch was a 21-6 game until 3 minutes remained. Smith and Seattle’s offense failed again. The Seahawks spent that night in third and long-yardage situations, crushing drives and chances to score.
“You nailed it. We’ve lived in a world of too many third and 7-plusses (against San Francisco),” Waldron said.
Yet this week you wouldn’t know from seeing and hearing Smith and his teammates that Seattle’s offense has scored just one touchdown in two games against San Francisco this season.
If projecting a refreshed, fun, nothing-to-lose vibe equates to improved performance, shorter third downs, running the ball, taking care of the ball and stopping the run inside Levi’s Stadium Saturday, the Seahawks have a chance to win as a 10-point underdog.
If not...
“(We) proved ourselves right,” wide receiver DK Metcalf said.
“We knew what we were doing and we were setting out to at least make the playoffs this year. But every team’s goal is to win the Super Bowl.
“We finished step one. Now just continue on this road to the Super Bowl.”
This story was originally published January 11, 2023 4:53 PM.
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