THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Answers to your questions — well, most of them

Apologies to all of you who have emailed with very logical questions, and …

You’re still waiting for me to respond.

Or at least to say I don’t know the answer.

Let’s try to get some of the most common questions out of the way today, whether I can dive completely to the bottom of your issues or not.

No more wasting time.

Let’s get to some these puzzles …

QUESTION: Are the Seahawks stuck in a spot where they’ll have to pay Geno Smith more than $30 million for three years and beyond — unless they draft and play a rookie quarterback?

ANSWER: Not necessarily.

One option, whether they draft a QB or not, would be to use the franchise tag on Geno — which would pay him something like $32 million for 2023.

You’d assume the Seahawks would only use the tag if they DO draft a quarterback, and let the rookie learn from Smith for a year.

The more likely course, given how many teams have sub-par quarterbacks (or worse), would be to sign Geno for two or three years, perhaps with an option attached.

The Hawks could try to negotiate a deal in the $20 million range, but it would be risky to let Smith actually get to free agency — again, because so many other teams are desperate for solid QB play.

Consider: Smith’s 105.3 passer rating is second-best in the NFL behind Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa, who has played two fewer games.

Smith’s completion percentage of 71.4 is best in the league, his 3,671 passing yards are seventh, and his 26 touchdowns are fourth.

Seattle would really be gambling if they allowed Smith to test the market, hoping to bring him back for less than $30-35 million per year.

If there’s a quarterback in the draft that Pete Carroll and John Schneider really love, it still could make sense to keep Geno around for a year on the franchise tag.

That’s never the ideal solution for team or player, but it might be the compromise option — unless Pete and John want to lock down Geno as QB1 for the next few years.

QUESTION: I really wish the Mariners had spent money on a free agent or two, but their decision to stay out of the crazy shortstop market seems to makes sense. What are these MLB teams thinking, handing out hundreds of millions to players for 11 or 13 years, contracts that will take them into their 40s?

ANSWER: Yep, deals running up into the $300 million range and above definitely are acts of faith. Players with those price tags have to produce, and there’s rarely a way out for the clubs if they don’t.

As for the length of the contracts, however, remember that the number of years is more of an accounting issue than anything else.

Teams likely know that the players will offer very little on the back end of a deal that runs more than seven or eight years.

The purpose of the longer terms, however, is to help clubs avoid getting caught with a payroll above the “luxury tax” (which this season will be around $293 million).

It doesn’t matter how or when the contract money is paid to a player.

For purposes of the competitive balance tax, it’s simple math — dividing the total amount by number of years.

If a player signs for $330 million over 10 years, the team is tagged with $33 million for each of those 10 seasons, no matter how the payments actually are made.

Thus, these extremely long deals help keep teams’ payrolls lower in the short term.

Beyond that, they’re assuming the luxury tax likely will go up each season.

Make sense?

Well, the math does — but whether ANY shortstop can carry a team for a decade, that’s another story.

QUESTION: It’s obvious that Mark Few has had to try different player combinations to see how his team can best find some rhythm this year — but some of his substitutions and other decisions are puzzling. For instance, why would he have Anton Watson playing in the last few minutes at Alabama, with the Zags protecting a lead and obviously in a spot where they’ll be shooting free throws?

ANSWER: I was wondering about that myself, considering that Watson is a 56 percent free-throw shooter — and his obvious replacement, Ben Gregg, has made all eight tries from the foul line so far this year.

In other words, I can’t answer this one.

Several of Few’s personnel moves have had me scratching my head this season, in fact.

We all think we could make brilliant decisions if we were in charge, when obviously …

Few now has won more games than the legendary John Wooden.

Still, I’m anxious to know why the strong, steady and accurate Malachi Smith (15 of 30 from behind the arc so far) isn’t on the court for 32-35 minutes?

Let’s see how all this plays out, and whether or not Few’s total belief in Watson (at the expense of minutes for Gregg) turns out to be the right call.

That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid.

QUESTION: After watching Washington State’s bowl game, my skepticism about the transfer portal has become etched in stone. Is it going to ruin college athletics, as it appears so far?

ANSWER: OK, now we’re into a serious subject, and I’m going to write an entire column about the transfer portal — how it works, and what some results have been.

There’s WAY more to both the problems and the plus side of the portal than this, but one quick solution to the current chaos would be to reinstate the one-year wait for eligibility at a player’s new school — a system that worked well for decades.

I have no problem with athletes changing schools, or making money off Name, Image and Likeness.

But the entire system wouldn’t be going crazy if athletes had to sit out a year after deciding to transfer.

There’s a whole universe to all of this, including recruitment of high school athletes who get stuck in limbo (because schools are waiting to see who they can get from the portal).

As I said, it’s worth an entire column.

Coming soon.

Watch this space.

Email: [email protected]

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press four times each week, normally Tuesday through Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”