Geno Smith wants to be more of a running threat in 2023

Fresh off of a career season, a Comeback Player of the Year award, and a new contract, Geno Smith is ready to roll in year two as the Seattle Seahawks’ starting quarterback. Or maybe, I should say, he’s ready to run more?

NBC Sports columnist Peter King covered the Seahawks in his Football Morning in America column, and that included a couple of comments from Geno. One thing to note this year is Smith has changed up his diet and is now a pescatarian.

“I haven’t had chicken or beef in four or five months now,” Smith said. “I’ve been eating really healthy, really clean.”

Pescatarians do eat fish, so he can still enjoy the succulent seafood scene in Seattle (say that five times fast).

But the bigger story is Smith’s goal to create more offense with his legs, which includes the “out of structure” plays that I feel like Seahawks fans should know very well given some of the magical moments Russell Wilson provided over the past decade.

“I still feel like I don’t really do enough of the stuff on the move,” Smith said. “Being able to create off-schedule. And then being able to attack a little more in the red zone.”

Smith may not be prime Wilson or Lamar Jackson or Justin Fields, but he’s more than capable of extending plays on the run and getting rush yards when needed.

PFF charted Smith with 35 designed runs for 60 yards, but sneaks and kneeldowns make up a large portion of this. His 33 scrambles ranked 6th among all quarterbacks, and his 306 scramble yards also was 6th.

We have seen the occasional read-option and even QB power with Smith, and while I don’t expect that to be used heavily this season, it would be interesting to see if Geno will look to create even more offense with his legs than he did last year.