Geno Smith says viral ‘Oh my God!’ shout on Aaron Donald pressure wasn’t him

Who among us wouldn’t yell “Oh my god!” or something similar if we got to play NFL quarterback for a day and Aaron Donald was heading towards one of us? It sounded like Geno Smith was the one who had this viral moment in the Seattle Seahawks’ opening day game against the Los Angeles Rams...

...But it turns out it wasn’t actually him.

Geno cleared the air in an interview with “Inside the NFL” on The CW—chances are this is the first time you’re finding out “Inside the NFL” still exists and is on The CW—and also addressed the other viral clip from the following week against the Detroit Lions.

“I didn’t say ‘Oh my God!’” Smith said. “It was not even me in that soundbite, it was actually someone else. I’m not going to say who, but at my expense, obviously, I’ll take the brunt of it.”

If you listen to the audio again real closely, I think there’s enough evidence that Smith didn’t say it and the timing was purely coincidental. After Smith fields the snap, there’s a loud grunt that is very audible before Smith completes his dropback and before Donald has even breached the backfield. The “Oh my god!” shout came shortly thereafter and it sounded like it came from the same grunting voice, aka not Geno. I do not claim to be an audio forensics expert, of course.

As for the second clip, Geno interrupted referee Alex Kemp while he made an (incorrect) intentional grounding call against Smith. This prompted Kemp, who still had his mic on, to say “I’m talking to America here.”

“On the second one, obviously never interrupt the referee while he’s talking, but it wasn’t intentional grounding,” Smith said. “I’m trying to do my best to help the refs out, help my team out, doing everything out there on the field. Obviously two great soundbites and I enjoy seeing them as well, so it was pretty cool.”

It ain’t just soundbites with Geno, of course. He saw your memes about his post-game fit and has written back.