The Las Vegas Raiders won’t be cutting quarterback Geno Smith after all.
General manager John Spytek pulled off a last-minute deal to trade Smith to the New York Jets on Tuesday, ending his stay in Las Vegas after one ill-fated season.
The deal came as quite a surprise, as the Raiders were expected to release Smith as soon as Wednesday, but the Jets were willing to compensate them to keep Smith off the market.
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Geno Smith trade grade: A+
There’s no other option for evaluating the deal. Spytek got something out of nothing. If you want to nitpick, he could be docked for trading for Smith in the first place. But that would assume Spytek made that deal and not Pete Carroll, the team’s coach last season.
The Jets aren’t picking up the entire contract. It was restructured, and the Raiders are retaining most of it.
Spytek has been doing a great job, but he’s not a miracle worker.
But the Raiders extracted around $2 million in additional cap space from the Jets and moved up in the draft as a result of the pick swap.
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.
