NFC Notes: Geno Smith, Cardinals, Rams, Seahawks

Cardinals

• Cardinals HC Jonathan Gannon defended WR DeAndre Hopkins‘ decision to not attend the start of OTA’s: “I’m not worried about Hop. He’s played a long time and he’s extremely intelligent, and I think he’ll fit right in when he decides to come. But, again, it’s, you know, it’s voluntary.” (Josh Weinfuss)
• Cardinals WR coach Drew Terrell was selected to participate in this week’s Coach Accelerator program at the May NFL owners meetings. The program is intended to increase exposure between owners and executives and diverse coaching talent with the goal of increasing the number of minority head coaching hires. 
• Craig Grialou of AZ Sports points out Cardinals LB Zaven Collins has been participating as an edge rusher throughout their offseason program thus far. 
• According to Aaron Schatz, Cardinals QB Colt McCoy may not be ready for the start of the season due to a neck injury, which could leave them turning to Clayton Tune or Jeff Driskel for Week 1 with Kyler Murray (ACL) still recovering. 

Rams

There aren’t many quarterbacks who enter the NFL with more experience than Rams fourth-round QB Stetson Bennett, a 25-year-old with 32 starts in the SEC at Georgia and two national championships under his belt who played for a veteran NFL coordinator in Todd Monken. So the fact that his head is spinning at his first OTAs should say plenty about the transition from the college game to the pros. 

“I can just tell you that it’s (faster),” Bennett said via the Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue. “Those D-linemen are coming. The hashes are a little bit different, so that makes for a shorter throw to the field but a longer throw to the boundary, and the routes are a little bit deeper here. The first day, I was kind of freaking out about the play calls. Stumbling over my words, a little bit. It’s weird to hear the play call from the earpiece, it’s just completely different from … what we did in college. But he was very helpful, ‘you’re good, you’re good.’ I’d have to ask him, like, twice.”

Seahawks

Seahawks QB Geno Smith signed a three-year, $105 million contract with Seattle but plans to take things one season at a time at this point in his career.

“It’s still year-by-year,” Smith said, via Brady Henderson of ESPN.com. “I’ve got to look at it like that. It’s one year at a time for me. My celebration was I picked up my baby and hugged him up and then I went to the weight room and got back to work. Just got to stay in it. I’m just trying to keep working and focus on ball.”

One reason for this thought process could be that Smith is aware his contract can be voided after one year at $28 million, which means he must continue to play at the level he did in 2022. 

“If it is different, I just want to work hard and be better. That’s really it. But in my mind, I keep the same mentality,” Smith added. “Drew [Lock] and I and [undrafted free agent Holton Ahlers], we’re competing our butts off and that’s competition every day. We’re trying to see who’s the best quarterback out there on the field every single time. It’s the NFL, there’s a draft every year. There are players out there, guys out there working hard. That’s why I’ve got to work hard. I’ve got to be better than those guys, and I look at everyone as competition. There are a lot of great rookies that are coming out of the draft and I think they’re all deserving. So if we’d picked one, I would have given him my all, just as would I do to any teammate. It really didn’t matter to me. I love competition so I’ll compete with everybody.”