📰 NEWS FLASH: Atlanta Just Gave Las Vegas a Way Out of the Geno Smith Mess ⚡.DH

The Las Vegas Raiders don’t need to say it out loud. Everyone already knows.

The Geno Smith experiment is over.

When the Raiders acquired Smith last offseason, the logic made sense on paper. A veteran quarterback upgrade.

A stabilizing presence. A bridge toward something better. Instead, the result was one of the most punishing seasons any quarterback endured in 2025—and one the franchise is now eager to move on from.

Smith was sacked a league-high 55 times, struggled behind a broken offense, and finished near the bottom of the league in most efficiency metrics. While the blame wasn’t his alone, the optics were brutal. And now, his contract has become a problem Las Vegas needs to solve quietly and quickly.

Cutting him? Painful.

Releasing Smith would leave the Raiders eating $18.5 million in dead money while only saving $8 million against the cap. It solves the locker room issue but creates a financial headache. Trading him has always seemed unlikely—until now.

A new idea is gaining traction, and for the first time in weeks, it actually makes sense.

According to a FanSided offseason projection, the Atlanta Falcons could emerge as a realistic landing spot for Smith. At first glance, it sounds absurd. But the more you look at Atlanta’s situation, the harder it is to dismiss.

The Falcons are widely expected to move on from Kirk Cousins. Michael Penix Jr. is still recovering from an ACL injury. That leaves a roster built to win—Bijan Robinson, Drake London, Kyle Pitts, a solid offensive line—without a dependable quarterback to tie it together.

Smith, for all his flaws in Las Vegas, wasn’t always this player.

Just one season earlier, he finished top-five in passing yards and completion percentage with Seattle. That version of Smith didn’t vanish—it was buried. Context matters, and Atlanta offers a context Las Vegas never could.

A functional offensive line. Skill players who create separation. A coaching staff that doesn’t ask the quarterback to survive chaos on every snap.

For the Raiders, the appeal is obvious.

They aren’t looking to win the trade. They’re looking to escape it.

Recouping the third-round pick they sent to Seattle is unrealistic. But even a Day 3 pick is preferable to absorbing Smith’s full $26.5 million salary. A trade would wipe that number completely off the books and allow Las Vegas to reset cleanly.

There’s also a subtle incentive at play.

The Raiders still need to meet the league’s cash spending floor. Paying down part of Smith’s contract to facilitate a trade wouldn’t just help Atlanta—it could help Las Vegas extract a slightly better return while solving multiple problems at once.

What makes this situation especially telling is how quickly the narrative has shifted.

Smith went from “necessary gamble” to “financial obstacle” in a matter of months. And yet, the league is full of teams willing to convince themselves that their environment will unlock what others couldn’t.

Atlanta might be next.

For the Raiders, this isn’t about belief anymore. It’s about damage control. About turning a failed move into something—anything—that doesn’t linger into a rebuild centered on a new quarterback.

If this trade idea gains momentum, it won’t be because Geno Smith suddenly became desirable.

It will be because Las Vegas finally found a place where his story doesn’t have to end—and where theirs can finally move forward.