RockneCAST
Geno Smith: Late Bloomer (#248, 26 Sept. 2024)
In this episode, I explore how Geno Smith resurrected his career from a career backup to one of the top NFL quarterbacks.
How did he do it?
In this episode, I explore how and try to offer the Carolina Panthers can take the lessons learned to handle their Bryce Young situation.
- Broadcast on:
- 26 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
Hey guys, the Rocky cast, I'm going to do this episode on Gino Smith, the starting quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks, and an area that I have not seen a lot done in connection with Gino Smith. And that is, how did he emerge from near complete bust to one of the top NFL quarterbacks? How did that happen? I've seen a few articles on that, but I have not seen a lot. And even after I searched through the internet, I haven't found any good articles on what Gino Smith did to become one of the top NFL quarterbacks after being considered a near bust and laboring away in the as a second string quarterback for nearly 10 years in the NFL before he emerged for the Seattle Seahawks in 2022 as one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL. So I'm going to do this on what happened to Gino Smith? How did he do this? What's his secret? What are the timeless principles that he's applied? I'm sure if he has a couple more good seasons, I think that he'll probably do a book and share kind of what he's learned because there's really two types of people in this world that have a successful career. And first of all, I define success as being the best version of you and serving your purpose. And what I love about people like Gino Smith or Kurt Warner or Tom Brady or Peyton Manning is these are guys that get everything out of the gifts that they've been given. No one's going to say to Gino Smith, "Oh my gosh, you didn't become the best possible quarterback that you could." And so that's how I define success is using your gifts to the max. I think so often people don't do that. And so it's good to just kind of observe and look at someone like Gino Smith and ask, "Why? How did he get there? How did he do it?" Now, I was able to find one article by David Erman. So I think there are some principles that we can distill. I did obtain a quote from Gino Smith about one aspect of how he got where he got. So I think, yeah, I hope you'll find this helpful. But I'm not going to give you any of course, like a lot of things, there's no magic pills, there's no shortcuts or anything like that. But there are some principles and I just find it really interesting as a topic. In particular, the topic of people who are late bloomers, people that labor for a long time in total obscurity before they emerge, because there's really kind of only two types of people that do great things in the world. The first are kind of the instant sensations. People like Britney Spears, when they're like 16 years old, kind of emerge, or Kurt Cameron as an actor in his teens, or Shirley Temple, when she's like eight, become super successful. But then there's the other type, the late bloomer. People that do their greatest work, like after 50. And maybe this is because I'm 49 years old and I like these guys, but I think the reason I'm particularly like these late bloomers, these people that do great things later in life, because then you can learn so much from people like Geno Smith, because he definitely was a late bloomer, because I think a lot of the principles that you can gather from someone like a Geno Smith can be transferable. Now, they're not going to be transferable to me to become an NFL quarterback, because I don't have that makeup. But there's tons of people out there in the world today that are walking around, that wanted to be a quarterback, that have the same amount of talent as Geno Smith, and yet didn't even make the NFL, or maybe didn't even become a division or one quarterback, they left their skills and their gifts on the field. They didn't utilize them. And I think that's probably one of the saddest things that you can do. And this is just a shout-out to the quarterback, Geno Smith, and celebrate how well he's done in resuscitating his career. And it's also a cautionary tale and a piece of advice for the Carolina Panthers as they consider what they should do with their quarterback, Bryce Young, who a lot of people in the second year think is going to be a total buzz. So I think there are some lessons that even contemporaneously organizations like the Carolina Panthers can learn. So first off, let's set the stage for Geno Smith and his transformation and what happened in his career. I don't have any data on how unusual this is, but it's pretty cool if you look at his story. And in a roundabout way, it kind of reminds me of the story of Kurt Warner, where in his late 20s, he emerges as a starting quarterback and then goes on to have a great NFL career. Not exactly the same, but very similar. So who is Geno Smith? If you don't follow the NFL. He was a fairly accomplished college quarterback in 2012 for the University of West Virginia. I did not follow his career in great detail, but he was considered to be a first round quality caliber quarterback for the NFL draft. So he's considered to have a talent skills and performance to be an NFL quarterback and was actually invited to New York for the NFL draft at the time the NFL draft was done there every year before they started moving it around. He was picked on the second round by the New York Jets, who believed he did have the capability of being the starting quarterback. And indeed, his rookie season, Geno Smith was named a starting quarterback and played a full season as starting quarterback for the New York Jets in 2013. He also played in 2014. And what was his record? Well, it was kind of awful. You can look up his own stats. I'm not going to give you all of them, but he was basically a disaster. In 2013, he had a passer rating of 66.5. This is really bad. Most quarterbacks, if you're all competent, are over 80. He threw for 3046 yards. And he was an interception and fumble machine, not very good as a quarterback. In 2014, he regressed through only 2,500 yards, 77 passer rating. By that time, his career as a starting quarterback was over. And then he languished in obscurity for the next nine years, which in football life, most football players' career is only like three years. So for the next nine years, or should I say eight years, he languished as a backup quarterback. Now, he wasn't in the gutter totally. But no one would have thought that Geno Smith would sit as a backup quarterback for nearly eight years and emerged in 2022 as one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL. And if you look at the numbers, he was in 2022, one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL. He threw for over 4,000 passing yards and had a passer rating of 100.9. He threw tons of touchdowns. His interceptions were down. He was one of the top guys in the NFL. A lot of people didn't believe it, because they just couldn't imagine Geno Smith would be a top flight quarterback, because he'd been a backup his whole life and widely considered to be a bust. All of the experts were saying, eventually, he's just going to revert back to being Geno Smith. Sooner or later, the walls are going to crumble. And he is going to return to the Geno Smith that we all know and love, which is at best a backup NFL quarterback, which, of course, there can be worse things than being a backup NFL quarterback. I mean, think about this. I think there's 28 NFL teams. And so, if you're a backup quarterback, you're in the top 50 of quarterbacks in the world. So you're still tremendously accomplished, but no one would have considered Geno Smith to be a starting quarterback in the NFL, let alone a very, very good. Now, is he a top five? No. But at this point in his career, he's probably a top 10, the top 15 NFL quarterback. He's very accomplished. After a season in 2022, he signed a three-year contract, I believe for $100 million averaging nearly maybe it was $75 million, but it's like $25 plus million a year that he received in this particular contract. So very successful. I think he's trying to aim for a new contract now, but that's beyond the scope, what I'm trying to do. He clearly was a late bloomer. Surprisingly, I have not seen any articles in the Atlantic in the New York Times. He's not done a book. And I think probably one of the reasons why he hasn't done a book yet is one, he doesn't want to have too much fun, set himself up to be a total failure. But number two, and I think he just didn't want to jinx it, but number two, I think he wanted to develop a little bit more track record before he claimed that he had some magic elixir to success. So I think that's probably why, but I hardly found anything related to how he did this, because even though I don't know all the details, I did discern some, he obviously just didn't go from being a bust, which he was unquestionably in 2014. If you draft him the, if you have first round talent, and you don't make it as an NFL starting quarterback, I don't know if you're considered a bust, but he certainly was a disappointing career. No one would have hired him to be their starting quarterback in the NFL in 2022. No one prior to that season that he emerged, no one would have thought because he had eight years of failure. So I found one article on this question of this late bloomer, how to be transform himself. And there were some principles that were distilled through this article by David Herman, and essentially a cognitive websites, only thing I could follow. But there were three principles that he developed that he believes that Geno Smith was able to utilize to become what he did. Now I believe there's even more to this story. This is probably worthy of a book on how he transformed himself, whether it was a Rocky Balboa type thing going into the, going into the Soviet Union and running in the snow or what he did. But I'm sure the particulars of how he did it are even more awesome. I do have one quote from him that I was able to get from the internet that I think is kind of interesting. We'll be able to develop on that. So what were the three principles that this David Herman identified in terms of the traits that helps Geno Smith transform himself into one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL? Well, the first principle is identified as self-efficacy. That's defined in your perception of the belief in your skills. And this is particularly strong in people that have already performed at a high level. And of course, the flip side in it, if you doubt your abilities like that and you don't achieve any success, you're not likely to believe in your ability to perform at a very high level. So in the case of Geno Smith, before the 22 season, before he emerged as a top flight quarterback, he did have his past success as a star quarterback for the University of West Virginia. So he knew that he had a first round quality talent. He had a first round quality arm. He had enormous amounts of success. He was able to play at the NFL level. He wasn't a total bust, but he did not have the success. So what happened there? So he was able to have the belief. And I think that kind of sounds obvious, but I think my takeaway on that is belief is such a powerful thing in the belief in your ability to do something, the belief, the start. And here I channel the work of James Clear to start small and get some small, but quick wins to believe that you have the power to do something. It's true with weight, it's true with exercise, it's true with financial performance, your ability to be able to reduce debt, just break something down into the smallest possible piece and have success with it and keep that ball rolling. In this particular case, he had an enormous amount of success as a quarterback for the University of West Virginia. But when he was on the outs, low, I bet you anything, he had a training program in terms of he knew he could do it. He believed he could do it. And that was the first essential step that he made to believe that he had the power to do it. Because if you don't believe in something, you don't even try. So I'm sure that there are a lot of little wins he had along on the way as he transformed himself into one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL. So if you're trying to lose weight, what's the take home for you? If you're trying to lose weight or get in shape to lift weights, start with incredibly fun, small wins that you know you can do every single day. So in my case, in terms of being able to lose some weight, it was I was able to skip practice and learn about intermittent fasting. And that put me on a track, those wins reinforced my identity as a faster. I'm sure there was a lot of little wins that Gino Smith had as he was reaffirming his belief that he was a starting quarterback in the NFL. And not only a starting quarterback in the NFL, but a top flight quarterback in the NFL, he believed it. And he had the self wrench referential ability to believe that he could do it. The second principle, and I think this is immediately applicable to all of us, whether it's young people, old people, I mean, in a profession or anything like that, is observation of someone's who does it at an exceedingly high level. One of the things that Gino Smith and here probably was his superpower, is that Gino Smith had the fortune to play for a couple of years, the New York football giants, and he sat behind Eli Manning. Now I have not studied Eli Manning as much as I have Peyton Manning, but both Peyton, I can't say Peyton without thinking of Peyton, you know, that commercial of that insurance commercial. It's like Peyton Manning, Peyton Manning, but both the Manning brothers obviously have exceedingly good habits. Now, of course, they have some naturally gifts, naturally good gifts. But you would not think that either of these guys would necessarily look like an NFL quarterback. You would not think that any of them would be not only NFL quarterbacks, but most probably Hall of Fame. Peyton's certainly going to make the Hall of Fame. Eli probably will make the Hall of Fame. But Gino Smith, they will observe the work and quarterback habits of Eli Manning. I don't know what all those habits were, but I'm sure he was able to observe and observe them. One habit I think I learned from Eli is I believe that whenever the team would win, he would have someone else on the podium so they could get the success. Whenever they would lose, he would take responsibility. So I'm sure that Gino has taken that particular responsibility and habit and learned that from them. So if you want to be in a particular area, there are some principles that you can learn from someone who's doing that area exceedingly well. You can learn and you can observe. One of the saddest things that we have in our culture today is we've kind of gotten rid of the apprenticeship system where you learn from a master, someone who's exceedingly good at what they do. You learn how they do that and you distill the timeless principles that that person used to become who they were and then you apply it to your own life and develop those same habits that that successful person used in terms of their skills. And that takes time. That takes time for the apprenticeship. You know, Andy Reed was smart enough with Patrick Mahomes to let him apprentice for one year and watch Alex Smith. So he had a full year to learn from someone else and I can't help but think of Brian Young who was Bryce Young who was thrown into the fire right away with the Carolina Panthers and they put him into the starting lineup right away and it was an absolute disaster. He did not have any time to apprentice to learn how to prepare like a pro. And this is one of the things that this David Ehrman learned from Gino Smith was his preparation. Well, who did Gino Smith learn in terms of preparation from Philip Rivers, the quarterback for the San Diego Chargers and he'll actually read a quote that I got from Gino Smith related to Philip Rivers and I just love this particular quote. He said he never see Philip Rivers without his laptop. His truck is set up to be almost like a film room. You watch him during games and he's talking to the backs, the receivers, the linemen, the defense, everybody. So what is he doing here? And this is me commenting. He's communicating. He's communicating with everyone. He's communicating with his team. He's being a leader. You see how he prepares during the week and you understand why. It's just a different level of preparation than I have ever seen and I'm going to take it with me. When I get my shot, I'm not going to steal anything from Phil. I'm going to do it the way he does it. I will get another chance. I know I'm a top six, seven quarterbacks physically, but it's a mental game and I've grown in that aspect. Things happen for a reason. So notice what Gino Smith is doing here. He's giving himself a performance audit. He's seen himself as if he was evaluating a third person. He's giving himself a meaningful assessment of what his strengths were and what his deficits were. What are his strengths as an NFL quarterback? He knew physically he had the skills to be a top six, seven quarterback. He knew that in terms of his measurable. He knew that in terms of his arm strength. He knew that in terms of his prior success as a quarterback for West Virginia and Virginia. What he realized is that the mental part of it is just as important as the physical part of it. Because if you understand what's going on, you can process information more quickly. You can be relaxed. You can be focused. You can know where to throw the ball. The more you prepare, the less your anxiety goes down, the greater performance that you'll have in connection with that particular task. One of the issues with high school kids is taking the standardized test of the ACT. Of course, part of it is you're actually God-given intelligence. You're God-given intelligence in terms of how smart you are unquestionably. It's kind of like an intellectual 40-yard dash. But the other part of it is anxiety. Can you suppress the anxious part of your mind? Because in some particular cases, that can overwhelm your ability to actually take the test. Because you get so frickin anxious, it inhibits your ability to perform. Well, what's one of the ways you can reduce anxiety through preparation? The more prepared you are, the more relaxed you are. The more you're familiar you are with the test, the more you can calm the mind and allow yourself to focus. That's what Geno Smith was able to do. Notice what he said is, "My mental part was not good." My mental part was not good because I was not preparing in the way that I did so I could see the feel clearly so I could use my own gifts. He assessed his weaknesses. He didn't blame other people. He didn't say it was someone else's fault. He assessed his own internal weakness and said that I am going to address it by preparation. And that really is the key to almost everything is to be prepared, to be ready to go, to know things inside and out, and to see things very clearly, to allow yourself to relax and move forward in terms of being able to be the absolute best version of you. You've got to be prepared. And you have to be able to meaningfully access your weakness. I can look at this podcast and I could say there's parts of this podcast that absolutely suck. The technology sucks. The lack of, I think early on especially, the lack of a real defined focus sucked. The lack of, there's just a lot of parts to the podcast that really suck guys. I'm not going to lie to you. But one of the things that I do is I've continued to do it. I've continued to get better at it. I've continued to hold my craft. I've continued to prepare. I've made a habit out of doing the podcast. And I think I've gotten actually better at it. Whether I'll ever be a successful podcaster, I have no idea. But I can tell you, I'm putting in the time to get this podcast better every day so that I can be the Geno Smith of podcasting. And it's because of preparation and persistence and the ability to make it happen. The final trait that ermine debt that identifies is patience. What if Geno Smith would have given up in 2014? What if it would have just said, I'm not a top flight quarterback. I'm not good enough to do it. I'm just going to simply give up. He spent eight years between 2014 and 2022, holding his craft, learning, preparing. And one of the things that he said is that when I get my shot again, I'm going to steal everything from Phil. And what was he stealing? Preparation mindset to steal the principles from Philip Rivers that made him a good quarterback. Notice that Philip Rivers was not an exceedingly talented quarterback. He had a weird delivery. He was not particularly fast, but he had a top night and top notch method to what he did to make him one of the best quarterbacks at the time that he played in the NFL. These principles are timeless that can be applied to everyone. Now, there are certain mental gifts that are essentially endowed by your creator. There are certain physical gifts that are endowed by your creator, but there are certain approaches and principles that anyone can apply. Diligence is as far as I can tell, anyone can be diligent. As far as I can tell, anyone can be prepared. As far as I can tell, anyone can be a good listener. They can listen to someone else and learn and listen from those great people. Anyone can be a good observer of people that do things exceedingly well. What are those traits that they engage in on a daily basis to enhance their ability to do things exceedingly well? What makes them them? We can all observe. We can all have patience. If you feel that you are doing the things you need to do to be the best version of you and it hasn't quite happened yet, you need to have patience. If you feel you're on the right track, if you're living your life with intention, you've got to have patience. You can't have unlimited patience because we only have so much time on this earth. You have to light a fire under your ass to get things going, but you do have to have patience. One of the things I think especially with this particular podcast, I think I want to take it to the next level and I want it to have a wider listenership. For those of you who are listening, I want you to share this with other people. I want you to post it on social media. I want you to share if you think that you've benefited from this because patience, when you're diligently planting the seeds and cultivating the seeds, is a great virtue. It does pay off as long as you know that you're on the right track. Are you doing the things that you need to do to be the best version of you? You need to have patience. That's why I love the story of Gino Smith. It did not just happen. I'm sure there's other things that he did. Physically, did he do meditation? Did he do retreats? Did he get a mentor? I would love to read a book. Gino, if you're listening, write a damn book and describe to us how you did it because I love it. He shared a little bit here but there's probably something more there and I just absolutely love that because to be the best version of you, you have to have daily application of those principles. If you do those, you will really achieve great things and I just love the people that are late bloomers. Here's also the punch line that I think is true. Anyone who's done something great is a late bloomer. I just almost believe that with all of my heart to some degree. Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hours. You need to put in your time before you are doing great things. My daughter is an artist. She's been cultivating that skill since she was like five years old. I don't know if she's going to emerge as a world-famous artist but if she does, it just didn't happen out of nowhere. It happened because of the application that she's been doing for nearly her entire life. This particular podcast, I don't know. Maybe it will continue to meander on an obscurity but gosh, I've been working on this puppy now for nearly four years which I think is a long time but it is something that I absolutely love doing. It's now an ingrained habit that I do without even thinking. I love reading books. I love learning about fitness. I love learning about spirituality and when I do, I'm going to keep sharing these lessons with you. I do believe I'm on the right track. I do believe I'm doing the right things to make it happen and I want to share that with you and I think we can learn from people like Geno Smith because he was not a late bloomer and I just cannot help but think of the Carolina Panthers. Here they are. They have this first round draft talent. They traded away the farm to get and I don't know if they're already going to give up on them or what but there is this template, the Geno Smith template that they have. Patients have some patience. Number two, allow him to mentor and observe from someone like Andy Dalton in terms of how he does it. And number three, make sure that he remembers he was a top flight quarterback for the Alabama Crimson Tide, one of the top college programs in history. He had won national titles with the Alabama Crimson Tide. The only way that I would give up, if I were the Carolina Panthers on Bryce Young, is the only way I would give up on him would be if he does not have good work habits, if he's not consciously trying to get better, if he's not constantly trying to be the best version of himself. You know, I compare Bryce Young with the quarterback of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who graduated from Clemson University. Trevor Lawrence. Trevor Lawrence doesn't really love football that much. He doesn't really work that hard. He had a lot of things that happened to him very easily early in his life and I think he's really struggling with that because he hasn't developed the work habits to be the best version of him. He has this enormous physical guess, but his mental game isn't there. He can change. He can do what he needs to do, but he needs to apply the principles of Geno Smith, which is believed, which he already knows. He's one of the top observation of the top quarterbacks. I would have someone like a Tom Brady mentor him. That's what Tom should do. He should have a mentor business of how to be a great quarterback. And do an apprenticeship, maybe bench him for a while, learn from the backup quarterback, learn from someone who can do it at a high level, but finally have some patience. You know, they say that good things happen to people that wait. Good things won't happen if you're not doing things with intention to plant those seeds, to cultivate these seeds, to be the best version of you, but it does take time. And so you got to have patience. So that's it for this episode of Genos of relating to Geno Smith. He's the ultimate late bloomer. And there's so much we can learn from him. I can't wait until he does a book on his life, because to me, it reminds me a lot of the story of Kurt Warner in terms of how he actually did it and the principles that we can take and apply to his own life. I mean, what we can discern so far in general is the self-efficacy of Geno Smith, the belief that he was a top flight talent. Number two, the preparation that he learned from mentors like Eli Manning and Philip Rivers. And the three is the patience, the ability to be able to wait and to study. And if you are waiting for that great thing, to use that time, prepare to be the best version of you, I have no idea if any of you are going to listen to this one, but this was a really fun one to do. And I hope that you reach out to me at rocketcast@gmail.com. If you found this podcast interesting that you share it, and that we try to grow our tiny but mighty audience of the rocket cast, we're going to continue to share a lot of good things that we're learning and learning stuff with. It's not hun, spirituality, a lot about Christianity, and I will continue to share these kernels of wisdom that I have learned to you, and I hope you had fun along the way. So that's it for this episode of The Rocking Cast, and I'll tell you next time you and I see each other on The Rocking
In this episode, I explore how Geno Smith resurrected his career from a career backup to one of the top NFL quarterbacks.
How did he do it?
In this episode, I explore how and try to offer the Carolina Panthers can take the lessons learned to handle their Bryce Young situation.