Smith

SHEPHERDSTOWN — National Football League (NFL) quarterback Geno Smith rose from the ashes in the 2022 season. Though he never played for Phoenix or its football team, the Arizona Cardinals, his professional career was resurrected when he rose from the ashes in Seattle, Wash. last season.

Smith’s is a highly unlikely story.

After being drafted out of West Virginia University (WVU) by the New York Jets following his record-shattering career with the Mountaineers, Smith stayed in East Rutherford, N.J. for the three seasons, the last two as only a shadow of what the team thought it was going to have when it drafted him.

He played in one game in 2015 and two games in 2016. Nothing much changed in the succeeding seasons, when he was in one game with the New York Giants in 2018 and then appeared in five games with the Los Angeles Chargers in 2018.

Seattle was his NFL home starting in 2020, but he was not a significant factor until last season when, at age 32, he became the team’s starter and threw for 30 touchdowns and 4,282 yards.

He was healthy. And he helped the Seahawks get healthy in the standings.

When he was going through the record book at WVU, placing his name on so many passing records you’d think he should be called “Touchdown” or “Career Record.” Smith was so successful he was quickly voted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

When checking the WVU passing records, Smith’s name literally dominates the book.

He will turn 33 shortly after the 2023 NFL regular season begins. But after being drafted following the 2012 college season, he has played in just 62 NFL games in his previously checkered professional career.

But he was in 17 games last season.

Smith is the lone quarterback from WVU now starting in the NFL.

His season-long performance in 2022 has buoyed hopes in Seattle.

His ability to scramble and keep plays alive makes him more difficult for defenses to contain. Still mobile and athletic despite career injuries, Smith seems to defy his past injuries and lost playing opportunities.

Seattle will play the Baltimore Ravens on Nov. 5 in Baltimore, Md. and then face the newly-owned Washington Commanders on Nov. 12 in Seattle.

Geno Smith was away from the headlines for years. But now he’s back and having the followers of WVU’s Mountaineers wondering if that possibly could be the same player who holds so many passing records for the Mountaineers.

It is possible. And it is the same passer who once dominated opponents as a Mountaineer.