Seahawks QB Geno Smith dares NFL teams to blitz him after beating Patriots: 'It really didn't pay off for them'

The New England Patriots turned out to be a tough nut to crack. Under the direction of rookie head coach Jerod Mayo the Pats ran the ball really well and played tight defense throughout Sunday's game. The Seattle Seahawks came out on top in overtime though, thanks mostly to the exploits of starting quarterback Geno Smith and his top two wide receivers: DK Metcalf and Jaxon Smith-Njigba . DK and JSN combined for 22 catches, 246 yards and one touchdown.

That one touchdown came on an all-out blitz by New England's defense, and as Smith put it to Albert Breer at Sports Illustrated after the game, it really didn't pay off for them. The Patriots DBs on the left side of the field blew the coverage on Metcalf, who streaked right past them for one of the easiest touchdowns of his career.

Later, Smith burned the Patriots again as they went cover zero on a critical third down in overtime. Smith flipped the ball to Zach Charbonnet, who came through with just enough YAC to move the sticks and set the team up for the game-winning field goal by Jason Myers. Here's what Smith had to say about getting blitzed when it was all over.

Geno Smith to SI on NFL teams blitzing him

“I welcome the blitz. I hope they blitz me... A lot of teams don’t. A lot of teams come out and play us two-high [safeties]. Today, they wanted to be aggressive. It really didn’t pay off for them. For me, I’ve seen so much football that I just know what I’m looking at. I study a lot of film. There’s always tells out there on the field. You just got to find the guy. I’ve worked on that. For the most part, teams don’t really zero us, but they got them to critical situations and that was their call. That’s what they went with.”

Smith ended the afternoon with a line of 33/44 for 327 yards, one score and a passer rating over 103. Considering the context of modern NFL defenses those are some pretty remarkable numbers. Smith also had to deal with bad pass blocking by his guards and five drops from his receivers.

It wasn't his most-impressive game ever (last year's loss to Dallas was), but it may have been Smith's most-flawless. According to one analyst, Smith did not make a single off-target throw in Sunday's game despite having an average depth of target over eight yards. Our grade for Smith's performance this week was an easy A.