Two years ago, Geno Smith opened the season as the Seahawks starter, helped lead his team to a thrilling Week 1 win over the Denver Broncos, then dropped one of the most memorable lines of the 2022 season during a postgame interview.

"They wrote me off, I ain't write back though," Smith told EPSN's Lisa Salters, dropping a quote that instantly went viral.

While Sunday's opener will again feature Smith starting against the Broncos, so much has changed for Seattle's quarterback, who in that 2022 game was just a couple of weeks removed from winning the starting job in a competition with Drew Lock.

Heading into the 2024 season, Smith is not only Seattle's established starter, he is also a two-time Pro-Bowl selection who, approaching his 34^th birthday, might be playing the best football of his life.

Whether you ask his teammates, coaches or Smith himself—“I’m still getting better,” he said before the start of camp… I know I’m still not a finished product.”—the consensus heading into the 2024 season is that, heading into his third season as Seattle's starter and his 11^th in the NFL, Smith is poised to do big things this year.

"Geno has been on one in camp," cornerback Devon Witherspoon said. "He's definitely been on top of his game. This year it's going to be like, who knows what he's capable of. I don't want to say sky's the limit, because I don't place a limit on it. We're all watching and waiting just like everybody else."

When Witherspoon was asked what Smith has been good at in this year's camp, he quickly responded, "'What hasn't he been good at in camp?' is the question. He's been able to pick us apart. He's going through all his reads. He's switching the play when he needs to switch the play. If he sees something, he'll go out there and audible it. He's doing everything an NFL quarterback should do, but the way he's doing it this year, it's different, especially with this offense."

Added receiver DK Metcalf, "You can just see his confidence growing, just by how he's throwing the ball. He's no-looking at some passes during practice, his swagger on the field, or the way he talks. I think it's going to be a fun year just by how he's approached this offseason and how he's carried himself throughout this whole offseason."

Over and over in training camp, players have pointed out how sharp Smith has been and how well Ryan Grubb's offense suits him, and his brief one-series cameo in the preseason did nothing to quiet that talk, and the group of players singing his praises includes Tyler Lockett, who has been with the team since Smith signed with the Seahawks in 2019.

"He's been phenomenal," Lockett said. "… He's had the best camp that I've seen him have. His mindset, he still has that mindset of that dog mentality, 'I've got to go out there and grind, I've got to go out there and get it."

For Smith, some of the growth has been physical—he insists he’s throwing the ball better than ever and running faster than ever—but he has also mellowed out a bit from the person he was in 2022, thanks in part to the experience he has gained as two years as the starter.

"Just getting more comfortable," he said. "Third year now, being able to go into the offseason and work on some things that I needed to get better at from last season. Kind of knowing that you're going to go in and be the starter allows you to be a little bit more comfortable. I think I've settled down a little bit, I think I was maybe a little excited especially that first year (as a starter) and then last year. I just feel like I overall settled down and I think it's just helping me be more calm when I'm out there."

Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald had an idea of who Smith was as a player having watched from afar and having game-planned for him last season, but being around Smith through the offseason and training camp has only upped the level of respect Macdonald has for his quarterback as a player and a person.

Macdonald has "a tremendous amount of faith," in Smith heading into the season, adding, "The whole thing revolves around the QB. He's our quarterback, and we're excited that he is. Quarterback, obviously, is the most important position, but just like anybody that's going to go out there, I don't see how you could put someone out there that you don't have 100 percent faith in... He's right there, leading the charge."

In particular, Smith has impressed his coach with "How much it matters to him. He's a great competitor, so detailed, works tremendously hard. It's not easy to learn a new scheme. No matter how many years you've been in the league, how many schemes you've been in. Geno's doing a great job, he's picked up the offense."

Offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb has been equally impressed with Smith's competitiveness and the perseverance that allowed him to take advantage of his opportunity in 2022 after seven seasons as a backup.

"He's such a competitor," Grubb said. "His story is inspirational if you don't know the whole thing, I just think about how many guys have cashed it in after maybe not the perfect start to their career, and really just the perseverance that he's had to be able to build a really special career to this point. And one of the best things about Geno is he still feels like he has not played his best football yet. And that's exciting to be able to coach a guy like that."

Despite losing his starting job after two seasons with the Jets, and not so much because of his performance but because his jaw was broken in a locker room altercation with a teammate prior to his third season, Smith never lost the belief in himself even as he spent year after year as a backup for the Jets, Chargers, Giants and Seahawks. Smith knew, even as less talented quarterbacks got second and third chances at starting jobs around the league while he waited, that whenever the chance came, he would take advantage of it.

"I think that was probably the key thing in all that," Smith said. "I remain confident in my ability, I remain confident in the type of player that I wanted to be and I worked towards it. That's no different then, than it is now. I always have high expectations for myself, but I hate to make it about myself because I don't play alone, I play with a group of guys. It's really about collectively how good can we be together. So, leaning on those guys. I feel like we got the best receiving corps in the league, in my opinion. Best running back room in the league. It's up to us to go out there and execute, but all of those guys together they help me have that confidence that you're talking about."