SEATTLE — As the NFL season hits the holiday stretch, we'll see more and more players get out in the community and give back.
Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith wasted no time getting involved. His mid-season break had barely ended, and he was giving out turkeys in Seattle Monday night to start his Thanksgiving week.
Geno and company handed out 112 turkeys to those in need, all while signing autographs and smiling for pictures.
He knows he has a lot to be thankful for and, in a strictly football sense, so do the 12s. They barely had time to miss their previous quarterback because the transition to Geno was almost seamless. For most of the season, he has been the league's most accurate passer, leading the NFL in completion percentage.
Up until the loss to Tom Brady and the Bucs, Geno was quietly being mentioned as an MVP candidate. But almost as soon as he fumbled the football in Munich on a drive that looked like it would end in a touchdown, people started jumping off the bandwagon.
I heard one analyst say, "Can we now stop talking about Geno Smith for MVP?"
I'm sure a lot of other people echoed those thoughts. Those are the same people who are waiting for Geno's bubble to burst so they can watch him plummet back down to earth.
But on that day, in that game, Geno got back on his feet at Allianz Arena and led the Seahawks on two touchdown drives.
He loves when people write him off. He thrives on it.
As he famously said after the season-opening win over the Broncos, "I ain't write back, though."
He filed a trademark for that phrase.
Call it an ad-libbed work of literary art.
And art has been a part of Geno's life since he was a kid.
When we sat down with Geno back in minicamp, he talked modestly about his artistic abilities. He said he actually thought about choosing art as a career path, but decided to pass on the palette.
Years later, he looks at his football career as a work of art. He'd likely admit in his early NFL days, he was struggling to just color between the lines, but now he's painting with masterful strokes.
He's a big reason why the Seahawks control their own destiny with seven games left in the regular season.
He's also in for a big contract.
In his 10 years in the NFL, Geno has never had a base salary of more than $1.3 million - that's according to SpoTrac, who also projected his next contract to be a 3-year deal worth $28 million a year.
At 32 years old, can Geno stay healthy and effective for the next three years?
Every team wishes they had a crystal ball that could give them a look at the future.
The only thing Geno can give the Hawks is a look at the present.
He still has a lot of the trademark tools to put points on the board. He also has the trademark phrase which scored a lot of points with fans.
And while someday Geno may profit off that phrase in the form of clothing, sports equipment and toys, he's a real-life action figure the Seahawks need to hang on to.