Before anyone could doubt him again, or project him a one-hit wonder, Geno Smith knew where he was headed. His Seahawks had just been routed out of the playoffs 41–17 by the 49ers, and that shiner of a loss would give Smith direction off that soggy Santa Clara grass.
He was going back to Seattle, and not just to clean out his locker.
While his teammates, like the members of any other eliminated team would, scattered across the country to start their offseasons, Smith saddled up in the Pacific Northwest with Seahawks assistant strength coach Danny van Dijk. The quarterback jokes now that van Dijk was probably pretty pissed with him, because chances are the coach wanted to go home, too. But there was real purpose to what Smith hoped to accomplish over the last two weeks of January.
