Latest / Seahawks Press Pass / Geno Smith: "I'm Looking Forward To A Special Season"
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Get after noon. How you doing him?
- 0:06Speaker 2: You know, we got five players in the pre season.
- 0:08Speaker 2: How excited are you to get to game action and
- 0:10Speaker 2: be out there with all the guys see what this
- 0:11Speaker 2: offense can do.
- 0:12Speaker 1: Super excited?
- 0:13Speaker 3: Uh, you know, obviously taking it one day at a time,
- 0:15Speaker 3: but we can't wait for the game, you know. I
- 0:18Speaker 3: think the guys are super super excited and ready to
- 0:20Speaker 3: go out there and execute, be in front of the
- 0:23Speaker 3: home fans, looking forward to the twelves coming out, being
- 0:25Speaker 3: loud as ever, looking forward to a special season, and
- 0:28Speaker 3: you know, all of us collectively just having a bunch
- 0:30Speaker 3: of fun.
- 0:31Speaker 4: Is there something you're most most curious or excited about
- 0:33Speaker 4: this specific offense kind of seeing it finally go against
- 0:36Speaker 4: another opponent?
- 0:37Speaker 3: Yeah, I think just mainly, how how can we do?
- 0:39Speaker 3: You know, how how good can we be? I think
- 0:41Speaker 3: I got a pretty good idea of where we're at.
- 0:45Speaker 3: I feel really great about it. But obviously you gotta
- 0:47Speaker 3: go out and execute, you gotta prove it, and so
- 0:49Speaker 3: you know, I think that we're well on our way
- 0:52Speaker 3: to doing something special here.
- 0:53Speaker 1: I think we have the right guys in place.
- 0:55Speaker 3: I think we have great, a great system in place,
- 0:57Speaker 3: and the right coaches and uh, you know, I look
- 0:58Speaker 3: forward to this season, but mainly Game one and just
- 1:01Speaker 3: getting out there in front of the fans and just
- 1:03Speaker 3: showing what we can do.
- 1:04Speaker 5: What do you feel like your offense is going to
- 1:05Speaker 5: do best this year?
- 1:07Speaker 3: Hopefully score points. That's the main thing. However, we get
- 1:10Speaker 3: it done. The main thing that we have to do
- 1:12Speaker 3: is score points and score a lot of them. So
- 1:14Speaker 3: we got a ton of weapons outside, we got a
- 1:16Speaker 3: ton of weapons in our backfield, great tight ends, great
- 1:19Speaker 3: old line, you know, and it's up to us to
- 1:22Speaker 3: go out there and put the points up. That's the
- 1:24Speaker 3: that's the best thing, and that's the main thing we
- 1:25Speaker 3: want to do is score a lot of points, give
- 1:27Speaker 3: our fans a lot to cheer about, be excited about,
- 1:30Speaker 3: and you know, make a lot of big plays.
- 1:32Speaker 2: You talk about game one, What is something about the
- 1:34Speaker 2: Broncos defense that kind of sticks out to you?
- 1:36Speaker 4: And how do you prepare for that kind of game plan?
- 1:38Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, they have a bunch of guys on
- 1:41Speaker 3: that side of the ball, a couple of guys that
- 1:42Speaker 3: we know.
- 1:42Speaker 1: Cody Barton's over there.
- 1:44Speaker 3: Now, you know Pastor Taine, who's one of the better
- 1:46Speaker 3: corners in the league. Congrats to him on getting paid.
- 1:50Speaker 3: They have a scheme that we're pretty familiar with, you know,
- 1:53Speaker 3: just in you know, being able to see in practice
- 1:55Speaker 3: and stuff the past few years, and so I'm pretty
- 1:58Speaker 3: sure they're gonna have some new wrinkles in there, something
- 2:00Speaker 3: we haven't seen on tape, some things that you know,
- 2:02Speaker 3: we might not have expected. But that's always the game.
- 2:06Speaker 3: You know, you got to be ready for it, and
- 2:07Speaker 3: you got to use your rules, and so, you know,
- 2:10Speaker 3: just looking forward to going up against a really stout defense.
- 2:12Speaker 3: You've been in the game a long time.
- 2:14Speaker 5: But where do you think.
- 2:15Speaker 2: You made the biggest growth or change in the off season?
- 2:19Speaker 3: You know, as you know, obviously just get more comfortable,
- 2:23Speaker 3: you know, third year now, being able to go into
- 2:25Speaker 3: the off season, you know, and work on some things
- 2:28Speaker 3: that I needed to get better at from last season.
- 2:31Speaker 3: You know, kind of knowing that you're going to go
- 2:32Speaker 3: in and be the starter allows you to have just
- 2:34Speaker 3: a little bit more you know, be a little bit
- 2:36Speaker 3: more comfortable. And uh, I think you know, I've settled
- 2:39Speaker 3: down a little bit. You know, I think I was
- 2:40Speaker 3: maybe a little excited, especially that first year and then
- 2:43Speaker 3: last year, and I just feel like I overall settled down,
- 2:46Speaker 3: and I think.
- 2:46Speaker 1: It's just helping me be more calm when I'm out there.
- 2:49Speaker 2: We've heard your teammates, coaches, everybody talking about how big
- 2:52Speaker 2: you've built in camp and this offense, cision you and
- 2:54Speaker 2: everything just as a player. Where do you feel like
- 2:56Speaker 2: you're at heading into this season?
- 2:58Speaker 3: You know, I feel great about my prepper, I feel
- 3:00Speaker 3: great about the things that we did in the off season.
- 3:03Speaker 1: I feel great about just overall the progress.
- 3:06Speaker 3: That we've made throughout you know, training camp, you know,
- 3:09Speaker 3: even in the preseason, you know, going out there and
- 3:12Speaker 3: you know, being able to go up against the Titans,
- 3:14Speaker 3: you know in the joint practice and see where we're
- 3:15Speaker 3: at there.
- 3:16Speaker 1: Feel really good about it. Now.
- 3:18Speaker 3: It's always room to get better and that's what we're
- 3:20Speaker 3: striving for. We're focusing on how can we improve one
- 3:23Speaker 3: day at a time, and if you know, we go
- 3:25Speaker 3: out there and we do great, we're gonna try to
- 3:27Speaker 3: find ways to get better again. So I feel really
- 3:29Speaker 3: good about where I'm at, you know, very confident and
- 3:33Speaker 3: what I can do and what I will do.
- 3:34Speaker 1: But it's about it's about the process.
- 3:36Speaker 3: Do you know know that it was your third year preparation,
- 3:39Speaker 3: did you add or take anything away to get ready
- 3:41Speaker 3: for your third year.
- 3:43Speaker 1: Uh.
- 3:43Speaker 3: Just the main thing was just you know, continuing to
- 3:45Speaker 3: work hard and uh, you know, really pushing yourself mentally
- 3:48Speaker 3: every single day, you know, finding new edges, you know,
- 3:50Speaker 3: new ways to you know, have that chip on your
- 3:53Speaker 3: shoulder grow more and more. And so the main thing
- 3:57Speaker 3: I did was I did everything else better. You know,
- 3:59Speaker 3: I did everything that I've been doing previously, I did
- 4:01Speaker 3: it better. And you know, I continue to try and
- 4:03Speaker 3: get better and try and find ways to improve, you know, individually,
- 4:06Speaker 3: as well as improve this offense, improve this team. And
- 4:09Speaker 3: that's my only goal is to try and get better
- 4:11Speaker 3: every day.
- 4:11Speaker 5: Speaking of that offense, we've heard how intricate it is,
- 4:14Speaker 5: but how important is.
- 4:15Speaker 3: Balanced in this offense past run?
- 4:17Speaker 1: Yeah, balance is critical, you know in any offense.
- 4:20Speaker 3: You know, you want to do whatever you know the
- 4:23Speaker 3: defense isn't expecting, right, you want to make sure that
- 4:25Speaker 3: you're out there and you're executing, whether that's run or pass.
- 4:29Speaker 3: You know, let the defense dictate that. I think we
- 4:31Speaker 3: have a great system in place that allows us to
- 4:33Speaker 3: do that. And then obviously we want to be aggressive
- 4:36Speaker 3: up front, right, we want to control the line of scrimmage.
- 4:39Speaker 3: We want to run the ball, We want to be effective,
- 4:41Speaker 3: want to be efficient in the passing game, want to
- 4:43Speaker 3: be explosive as well. And so I think we have
- 4:45Speaker 3: all the dynamics to be able to do those things.
- 4:47Speaker 3: But again, just comes down to execution. And I feel
- 4:50Speaker 3: really great about you know, where we are right now
- 4:52Speaker 3: and what we'll do in college ball.
- 4:56Speaker 2: Is there something that he's gotten you to think about
- 4:58Speaker 2: differently in terms of offense or how you move the
- 5:01Speaker 2: ball down the field or just a I don't know,
- 5:04Speaker 2: was this different background?
- 5:05Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, football is football.
- 5:07Speaker 3: The only th the r main difference in college is
- 5:09Speaker 3: the hashes are different, you know, so that you know
- 5:11Speaker 3: that's that's uh A dealing with like spacing of the
- 5:14Speaker 3: receivers and you know, just certain things like that. But
- 5:16Speaker 3: the main thing is, you know, what Grub brings to
- 5:18Speaker 3: the table is uh that sternness and just that understanding
- 5:22Speaker 3: of what it takes to be great.
- 5:23Speaker 1: You know, wherever he's been, he's he's.
- 5:25Speaker 3: Done a uh a phenomenal job and uh he's got
- 5:27Speaker 3: a way about doing those things. And so we're going
- 5:30Speaker 3: through that process. We we went through training camp. We
- 5:32Speaker 3: had OTAs and all the things necessary to be a
- 5:34Speaker 3: great offense.
- 5:35Speaker 1: I think that, uh, you know, grub Man.
- 5:38Speaker 3: He's got a lot of plays and a lot of
- 5:39Speaker 3: things that maybe some guys haven't seen yet. So we'll,
- 5:42Speaker 3: you know, we'll we'll see how that goes. But internally, man,
- 5:45Speaker 3: we know that we got a really really great, really
- 5:46Speaker 3: special coordinator, and uh, we wanna go out there and
- 5:49Speaker 3: execute and make the plays look good for him.
- 5:51Speaker 2: You mentioned confidence a couple of minutes ago. You've bet
- 5:53Speaker 2: a guy who's always had that belief in yourself. How
- 5:55Speaker 2: important was that self belief over all those years where
- 5:58Speaker 2: you're back up kind of wait for your opportunity to
- 6:00Speaker 2: just know what you could do.
- 6:01Speaker 3: Internally, Yeah, I think that was probably the key thing.
- 6:05Speaker 3: And all that you know is that I you know,
- 6:07Speaker 3: I remain confident in my ability. I remain confident and
- 6:11Speaker 3: you know the type of player that I wanted to
- 6:12Speaker 3: be and I worked towards it, and you know that's
- 6:15Speaker 3: no different then than it is now. You know, I
- 6:18Speaker 3: always have high expectations for myself, But I hate to
- 6:20Speaker 3: make it about myself because I don't play alone. You know,
- 6:22Speaker 3: I play with the group of guys, and it's really
- 6:25Speaker 3: about collectively, how good can we be together? So leaning
- 6:28Speaker 3: on those guys and I feel like those guys, you know,
- 6:31Speaker 3: we got the right I mean, best receiving corps in
- 6:33Speaker 3: the league in my opinion, best running back room in
- 6:35Speaker 3: the league.
- 6:36Speaker 1: So you know it's it's up to us to go
- 6:38Speaker 1: out there and execute.
- 6:39Speaker 3: But you know, all of all of those guys together,
- 6:41Speaker 3: they helped me have that confidence that you're talking about.
- 6:43Speaker 1: Because he hear kind of lad.
- 6:44Speaker 5: Have you spent extra time with Connor and preparations for
- 6:47Speaker 5: the season.
- 6:47Speaker 1: Oh?
- 6:48Speaker 3: Yeah, you know Connor has been great man. He's he's
- 6:50Speaker 3: picking up the offense extremely fast. Really impressed with the
- 6:54Speaker 3: way that he's leading the group already. And you know,
- 6:57Speaker 3: we've had a bunch of meetings on our own where
- 6:59Speaker 3: we're just you know, working on our vocabulary and just
- 7:02Speaker 3: speaking speaking the same language when we're out there on
- 7:04Speaker 3: the field. And uh, he's done a great job with that.
- 7:06Speaker 1: He's a true.
- 7:07Speaker 3: Professional and I think he's he's gonna be a great
- 7:09Speaker 3: asset for us.
- 7:10Speaker 5: Well, what is that challenge like for somebody who gets here?
- 7:12Speaker 1: What August?
- 7:13Speaker 5: You halfway through August and he has to learn a
- 7:15Speaker 5: new offense on the fly.
- 7:16Speaker 1: What does that challenge, like, you know, I would you know,
- 7:20Speaker 1: you would have to ask him.
- 7:21Speaker 3: But I think overall, it's just learning the verbage, you know,
- 7:24Speaker 3: learning uh, you know, a new language. You know, you
- 7:27Speaker 3: got plays and they got names, and you might come
- 7:29Speaker 3: from a place where that that name meant something else, right,
- 7:32Speaker 3: So trying to erase the old, old plays out of
- 7:34Speaker 3: your mind. And then you know, obviously learning a new system.
- 7:37Speaker 3: But you know, football's football, and if you got a
- 7:39Speaker 3: pretty good understanding of it, I think it helps you.
- 7:42Speaker 3: You know, he's a veteran guy, so he's been around.
- 7:44Speaker 3: He understands it, you know, so he knows how to
- 7:46Speaker 3: get himself prepared. But you know that's probably the only
- 7:50Speaker 3: thing is just learning a new language.
- 7:51Speaker 1: You know, for a quarterback.
- 7:53Speaker 5: How long does it take to kind of regardless of
- 7:55Speaker 5: who it is, with the center, kind of develop a
- 7:58Speaker 5: relationship or aport with the exchanges and everything kind of
- 8:01Speaker 5: know what's going on.
- 8:02Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's uh, that's like any relationship in life.
- 8:05Speaker 1: Man, it takes time. It takes work.
- 8:08Speaker 3: And uh, you know, with with Connor, you know we're
- 8:10Speaker 3: early in the stages of him being here, but he's
- 8:12Speaker 3: already jumped right in and you know, we're we're moving
- 8:15Speaker 3: you know, Uh, there's no setbacks. You know, he he
- 8:19Speaker 3: looks like he's been here the entire time. But that's
- 8:21Speaker 3: gonna grow, right, That's gonna that's something we're gonna build on. Uh.
- 8:25Speaker 3: Like I said, those meetings that we have on our own,
- 8:27Speaker 3: just the communication that we have throughout the building, throughout
- 8:30Speaker 3: the day, and you know, just going over the game plan.
- 8:33Speaker 3: You know, those type of things are what you know
- 8:35Speaker 3: allows us to go out there and play fast and
- 8:36Speaker 3: allow him to you know, jump right into the offense
- 8:38Speaker 3: and play.
- 8:39Speaker 5: You talked about set I think settling down was the
- 8:41Speaker 5: phrasing used earlier. What do you mean by settling down?
- 8:43Speaker 3: You know, I think, uh, that first year, I can
- 8:46Speaker 3: just remember just being so I hadn't played right, so
- 8:48Speaker 3: being so excited to just go out there and play.
- 8:50Speaker 3: And then the second year, you know you kind of
- 8:52Speaker 3: have those thoughts, well, can I you know, can I
- 8:54Speaker 3: do it again?
- 8:54Speaker 1: You know, can I come out here and do it again?
- 8:56Speaker 3: And now you know, I'm kind of at that point
- 8:58Speaker 3: where where I, you know, it's something tape right, So
- 9:02Speaker 3: I just got to go out there and be me.
- 9:04Speaker 3: And that's really kind of how I feel about.
- 9:05Speaker 4: It, y I saw I think you said that you
- 9:07Speaker 4: think DK is kind of primed for his best year ever?
- 9:09Speaker 4: What what have you seen out of him and it
- 9:11Speaker 4: and all that? Why do you think that?
- 9:12Speaker 1: Shoot?
- 9:13Speaker 3: Man? I mean, you know the guy was already good,
- 9:15Speaker 3: right and then I mean he came back this offseason
- 9:17Speaker 3: and was that much better. Looks like he's running faster.
- 9:20Speaker 3: It looks like he got stronger. You know, he's every
- 9:23Speaker 3: every past you throw to him, he's catching it. And
- 9:26Speaker 3: just his leadership has grown, the way that he approaches
- 9:29Speaker 3: the game, the way that he prepares, just every part
- 9:31Speaker 3: of you know, him is growing. And I was lucky
- 9:34Speaker 3: enough to get here when he got when he was drafted.
- 9:36Speaker 3: You know, we came in the same year, so I've
- 9:38Speaker 3: been able to witness his growth and h Right now,
- 9:41Speaker 3: hel he looks like the best receiver in football. And
- 9:43Speaker 3: I'm not just saying that. You know, I'll be hard
- 9:45Speaker 3: pressed to find one that can that can match up
- 9:47Speaker 3: with him.
- 9:48Speaker 2: Five months or so, you've been around, like McDonald looks
- 9:50Speaker 2: napping must about him as a.
- 9:51Speaker 3: Coach, Shoot, I love coach, you know, just the way
- 9:55Speaker 3: that he he he sets the layout for us.
- 9:57Speaker 1: Right. As for the team.
- 9:58Speaker 3: Uh, the very first meeting, right he he he, he
- 10:00Speaker 3: put a slide up on the board and he said, hey,
- 10:01Speaker 3: this is where we're gonna be, right.
- 10:03Speaker 1: And he's always always having.
- 10:05Speaker 3: That mindset of we need to get better, we need
- 10:07Speaker 3: to be better, no matter what we do, we got
- 10:09Speaker 3: to get better. We gotta be clean. And he's not
- 10:13Speaker 3: overly excited about when we do great. You know, he
- 10:15Speaker 3: expects us to do great and that's just the standard
- 10:19Speaker 3: around here. So we're expecting greatness and that's a daily
- 10:22Speaker 3: thing and coach demands it out of us, you know, on.
- 10:24Speaker 1: A daily basis.
- 10:26Speaker 3: We practice hard, you know, we fly around at practice.
- 10:30Speaker 3: He's got a great scheme, as we know, but just
- 10:33Speaker 3: knowing him as the man, getting to know the man,
- 10:35Speaker 3: really impressed with him.
- 10:36Speaker 5: What do you remember about the first offensive meeting you
- 10:39Speaker 5: guys had with Ryan Grubb back in the spring.
- 10:42Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, everyone's just kind of, you know, kind
- 10:45Speaker 3: of on the edge trying to see, like, you know,
- 10:47Speaker 3: what is this guy gonna be?
- 10:48Speaker 1: Like?
- 10:48Speaker 3: You know, how is he? You know, what type of
- 10:50Speaker 3: coach is he? What type of players we're gonna run?
- 10:53Speaker 3: And you know right away he just you know, put
- 10:55Speaker 3: the slide up and say, hey, look, this is what
- 10:56Speaker 3: we're looking for on offense, this is what we expect.
- 10:59Speaker 1: There's a rule around here.
- 11:00Speaker 3: He called it the tem percent rule, whereas you know,
- 11:03Speaker 3: no negative plays, turnovers, et cetera, penalties, try to keep
- 11:06Speaker 3: it less than ten percent. He said, if we can
- 11:08Speaker 3: do this with the amount of explosion that we have,
- 11:10Speaker 3: you know, in this room, on this offense, uh, we
- 11:13Speaker 3: should be able to win a lot of games. And uh,
- 11:15Speaker 3: you know right away, you know, he set the tone
- 11:17Speaker 3: for us. Uh.
- 11:18Speaker 1: And guys responded, and I think that was that was
- 11:20Speaker 1: a great meeting.
- 11:21Speaker 5: He told us yesterday that he was very aware of
- 11:23Speaker 5: his perception coming from his last two o C stins that,
- 11:26Speaker 5: you know, his pass happy offensive coordinator. And DK said
- 11:28Speaker 5: that he made it clear that you guys were going
- 11:29Speaker 5: to run the ball.
- 11:30Speaker 3: Do you remember that, Yeah, you know, he, like I said,
- 11:33Speaker 3: he said it. He set the layout for us. And
- 11:35Speaker 3: you know they were they led the league and you know,
- 11:37Speaker 3: I believe it was passing yards that college and passing yards,
- 11:40Speaker 3: but they also owned the time possession right, so you
- 11:43Speaker 3: got to be able to run the ball to do that,
- 11:45Speaker 3: and they were really efficient in the running game.
- 11:47Speaker 1: And we're gonna use all our weapons.
- 11:49Speaker 3: We got great running backs, you know, really really great,
- 11:52Speaker 3: some of the best in the world, and uh, you
- 11:54Speaker 3: know they're specially with the ball in their hands, so
- 11:55Speaker 3: we got to get them the ball as much as possible.
- 11:57Speaker 3: And uh, obviously it's got to be the right look
- 12:00Speaker 3: in the right situations. But you know, we're gonna lean
- 12:03Speaker 3: on that running game and it's gonna be a big
- 12:05Speaker 3: part of the offense.
- 12:06Speaker 5: Is there something about Grubb's planners scheam that you think
- 12:09Speaker 5: is gonna make he gets better in the.
- 12:10Speaker 1: Red zone and the third down?
- 12:11Speaker 3: And you have been recently. I mean, you know, honestly,
- 12:15Speaker 3: no matter what the plays are, it's about execution, you know.
- 12:17Speaker 3: So I do believe Coach Grubb has you know, some
- 12:20Speaker 3: some really great ideas and some some different ways to
- 12:23Speaker 3: attack defenses in those areas. But us as players have
- 12:26Speaker 3: got to go make the plays come alive. And you
- 12:28Speaker 3: know that's the main thing is that I think everyone again.
- 12:31Speaker 1: Believes in Coach Grubb, believes in.
- 12:33Speaker 3: His system and what he's trying to get accomplished, and uh,
- 12:36Speaker 3: you know, he puts the onus on us to make
- 12:38Speaker 3: sure it happens. And so for us as players, we
- 12:40Speaker 3: know we're gonna be right in the in the right
- 12:42Speaker 3: position to make plays.
- 12:43Speaker 1: We just gotta go make them. Do you have a
- 12:44Speaker 1: lot of pre sap autonomy.
- 12:46Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, which we we've had or you know, since
- 12:49Speaker 3: I've been here, and that's that's the way I think
- 12:51Speaker 3: you should play quarterback. But coach Grubb is uh, he's
- 12:54Speaker 3: great with that.
- 12:54Speaker 1: It's not more or less than before. No, I wouldn't
- 12:57Speaker 1: say so.
- 12:57Speaker 4: Yeah, since we had a chance to talk to you
- 12:59Speaker 4: last time, there was a report that you're sitedcchawks about
- 13:02Speaker 4: wanting to extend your contract. I mean, is that true
- 13:04Speaker 4: at all or is that anything that's on your mind
- 13:06Speaker 4: at all?
- 13:06Speaker 1: Or yeah, I mean that's true. I mean that's just
- 13:08Speaker 1: normal business. Nothing wrong with that.
- 13:12Speaker 3: Anything else.
- 13:13Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. Yes,