RENTON, Wash. -- The basketball hoop in the auditorium at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center, a fixture during the Pete Carroll era and perhaps the building's most prominent symbol of it, is no longer there.
The Seattle Seahawks aren't scrubbing all of their old head coach's fingerprints from team headquarters, but they won't have Mike Macdonald address his players every day with a reminder of his predecessor literally hanging over his head.
The absence of the hoop, like having a new coach after Carroll's 14-year run at the helm, will take some getting used to.
"That was the weirdest thing," quarterback Geno Smith said, "because I really walked over there to grab a basketball and I was like, 'It's not even there.'"
Smith spoke to reporters last week as Seahawks players returned to the facility for the start of their offseason program. The voluntary workouts mark the unofficial beginning of the Macdonald era, and arguably no one has more at stake with a new coach than Smith.
Consider that Carroll was perhaps Smith's biggest supporter in the building, the person who named him the starter in 2022 despite much of the organization expecting Drew Lock to win the job -- a decision that set the stage for Smith's resurgent season -- and then defended him at every turn during his up-and-down 2023. Also consider that authority over personnel decisions in the Seahawks' post-Carroll power structure now belongs to general manager John Schneider, who recently traded for Sam Howell and has openly talked about the possibility of taking another quarterback in next week's NFL draft.
Whereas Carroll cited quarterback as a team strength in his end-of-season comments, both Macdonald and Schneider initially sounded non-committal on Smith before declaring him their starter once they acquired Howell.
Indeed, a lot changed for Smith when Carroll was fired.
"That day is a day I'll probably remember forever just because of how things happened for me here," said Smith, who was among the team employees who packed the auditorium for Carroll's emotional farewell press conference on Jan. 10. "Obviously Coach Carroll, a big influence on my career, helped me out a bunch when I came to this organization and really ... thrust me into this spotlight that I'm in now. So for me it was ... just a terrible moment to see someone that I love so much, having to part ways with him.
"But that's the way of the NFL, that's the way things go and I'm very excited for what we have here now and just the direction we're heading in."
Despite the rough patches that Smith and Seattle's offense experienced last season, he still finished 14th in QBR (59.5). That was down from seventh (62.8) in 2022, when he made the Pro Bowl on the initial ballot and won NFL Comeback Player of the Year.
While the offensive line remains a question after struggling in 2023, there are reasons to be optimistic about Smith's prospects for a bounce-back season. After finishing 2023 with the NFL's best QBR (81.5) over the final six weeks, he'll have his top four targets returning, with Seattle re-signing tight end Noah Fant and agreeing to a restructured deal with receiver Tyler Lockett.
The Seahawks will be running a new scheme under Ryan Grubb, who oversaw one of the country's most prolific offenses as the University of Washington's offensive coordinator the past two seasons. The Huskies scored 36.7 offensive points per game over that time, sixth in the FBS. Seattle could upgrade the interior of its underperforming line by drafting Troy Fautanu, who starred for Grubb and new OL coach Scott Huff at the UW and has been a popular mock selection to Seattle at pick No. 16.
"I would say it's pretty complex," Smith said of Grubb's offense. "There's a lot of volume. A lot of verbiage. A lot of different plays. A lot of different concepts, protections and all those things. That's a good thing."
Smith, 33, has two years remaining on the three-year, $75 million deal he signed last March. The Seahawks created $4.8 million in cap space in February when they converted his $9.6 million March roster bonus into a signing bonus. That increased his 2025 cap number to $38.5 million, which could balloon by as much as $15 million more with escalators tied to how Smith and the Seahawks perform this season.
Asked if there was ever a point this offseason in which he thought he might not remain in Seattle in 2024, Smith said, "No, not at all."
The Seahawks were never going to cut Smith before his $12.7 million base salary became fully guaranteed on Feb. 16, but there have been signs suggesting they may have been open to trading him before free agency. The first time they publicly committed to Smith as their starter in 2024 wasn't until they traded for Howell four days after the start of the negotiating period, by which point the most realistic window to deal him had closed.
While the Seahawks have made it clear that Howell is the backup, Schneider said at the combine he "absolutely" believes he's a No. 1-caliber quarterback, noting how he's only 23 years old and has 18 career starts.
"New coaching staff, old coaching staff -- I've got everything to prove," Smith said. "That's every day. That's the way I wake up every day. I'm competing with Sam. I know he's competing with me. I want to compete my butt off. I'm competing with everybody in this building to be the best that I can be, so I really don't approach it any other way."
Part of the Seahawks' motivation for acquiring Howell after losing Lock to the Giants in free agency, according to Schneider, was that they felt their flexibility to trade up in the draft would be limited since they don't currently own a second-round pick. But taking a quarterback next week, perhaps even at some point on Day 2, is still not out of the question.
During his Seattle Sports 710-AM radio show last week, Schneider confirmed reports that the Seahawks recently hosted Oregon's Bo Nix and South Carolina's Spencer Rattler -- projected to be taken in the second and third round, respectively, in the latest alternating mock draft from ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. and Field Yates -- on "30 visits" at the VMAC. He joked that they still do their homework on quarterback prospects despite drafting only two over his 14 years in Seattle.
"Spencer's a real impressive guy and so is Bo," Schneider said. "We just wanted to be able to spend a little bit more time with those guys, have the coaches be able to spend a little bit more time with them on the board. You want to be cautious of their time as well. They're out here on West Coast visits, so we try to set those up when they're visiting the Rams, the Chargers or the Niners and try to fit those in.
"We love Sam [Howell], we love what we did being able to acquire Sam. We talked about the age, he's got the experience, but that doesn't preclude us from what we do in the draft."
If Schneider and Macdonald do spend an early pick on a quarterback, the question of Smith's future in Seattle beyond 2024 would become even more interesting.
"I'm just in that growth mindset," Smith said, citing one of Macdonald's go-to phrases.
"Everything's got to improve. I've got to be a better player, better leader, I've got to do everything better. I'm never going to look at it and say I'm a finished product. I'm still getting better at 33, about to be 34. And I feel like I've never been better. So I've just got to keep working, keep pushing myself and see where I end up."