Seahawks’ Sam Darnold knows he needs to prove himself again

RENTON, Wash. — Sam Darnold knows what you’re thinking. If it makes you feel any better, he’s essentially in agreement.

He’s acutely aware that his 2024 season ended on a note lower than Barry White’s vocals, and plenty of fans could get enough of his quarterbacking.

Sure, the No. 3 pick of the 2018 draft revived his formerly flailing career in an emphatic way last season, injecting himself into the MVP conversation while leading the Minnesota Vikings to the brink of the NFC’s No. 1 playoff seed. Yet Darnold’s final two games with the Vikings — especially his rocky effort in their first-round playoff defeat to the Los Angeles Rams — left a stench that has endured throughout the offseason, even as Darnold signed a hefty free-agent deal with the Seattle Seahawks.

“For lack of a better term, we laid an egg as an offense,” Darnold said in an interview with following a minicamp practice last week. “And I think, for me personally, that sucks. I felt like we were a really good team, but at the end of the day — and this is gonna sound a little pessimistic — but when you get to the end of it and you don’t win the whole thing, you failed.

“I feel like I could have played way better, to be completely honest with you. I feel I didn’t play up to my standard. I truly feel that way. I feel like if I would have just played better, I would’ve been able to give the team a chance.”

Darnold is running point for a new team now, thanks to the three-year, $100.5-million contract he signed with the Seahawks in March. That came after the Vikings extended only a one-year offer as Darnold headed into free agency, an indication of their intent to make J.J. McCarthy — the 10th overall pick of last year’s draft, who missed his entire rookie season following knee surgery — their quarterback of the future.

Now with his fifth team, Darnold, 28, sounds optimistic about his immediate future, an emotion echoed by at least one high-profile teammate’s assessment.

“I think without a doubt, he’s got his best football ahead of him,” said newly acquired wide receiver Cooper Kupp, a former All-Pro who was the MVP of Super Bowl LVI. “I love his competitiveness. He’s not OK with things being just OK.”

Having spent his previous two seasons under the tutelage of two of the NFL’s most respected offensive strategists, Kyle Shanahan and Kevin O’Connell, Darnold has enjoyed a reputational rehabilitation that compelled the Seahawks to pursue him in free agency instead of four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers. They’re betting that Darnold — like his predecessor, Geno Smith, who was traded to the Las Vegas Raiders for a third-round pick three days before Darnold signed with Seattle — will flourish after a mid-career reboot based in the Pacific Northwest.

“I do see him (as ascending), because — well, the experience we had with Geno would tell us that,” general manager John Schneider said. “These guys need reps, and he got a ton (in 2024). “The undercurrent from the league going into last season was that he had kind of turned the corner. And then, the evidence was there.”

The Darnold Renaissance began with little fanfare, during his one-year stint as Brock Purdy’s backup with the San Francisco 49ers in 2023. Having flamed out as a starter for the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers, Darnold attempted to rebuild his career by joining the Niners, who still had Trey Lance (the No. 3 pick in the 2021 draft) and Purdy (a 2022 seventh-rounder who’d thrived as a late-season replacement for the injured Jimmy Garoppolo during his rookie season) on the roster.

At the start of a training camp competition between Darnold and Lance for the backup job, Shanahan, the 49ers’ coach since 2017, went heavy on the hyperbole, telling me he saw some parallels between his newly signed passer and former San Francisco star Steve Young, a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

“I mean, Steve Young took a while to get going, and he’s one of the best quarterbacks of all time,” Shanahan said. “I don’t like to compare anyone to Steve, ’cause of how good he is, but why can’t Sam be like that? He’s got that type of ability. He is that type of person. And I’m just pumped that we could get a talented guy like him here.”

Darnold, after beating out Lance, barely played as Purdy helped guide the 49ers to a Super Bowl LVIII appearance, starting only a meaningless early January game against the Rams. However, his year under Shanahan’s tutelage helped get him to a better place in 2024. The Vikings offered him a one-year, $10-million deal as their presumed starter, albeit of the stopgap variety.

That metric began to shift as the season played out, with Minnesota winning 14 of its first 16 games and Darnold putting up impressive numbers, including a 35-12 touchdown pass to interception ratio. It seemed highly possible, if not likely, that the Vikings would place the franchise tag on Darnold after the season, and perhaps negotiate a lucrative long-term extension.

Then the new year arrived — and Darnold seemed to revert to his unseemly past. In the regular season finale, he completed only 18 of 41 passes in a 31-9 defeat to the NFC North rival Detroit Lions, relegating the Vikings to a wild-card slot. Eight days later, in a game relocated to Glendale, Ariz., because of deadly wildfires in Southern California, Darnold was sacked nine times and had two turnovers (including a fumble returned for touchdown) in a 27-9 loss.

The lasting image wasn’t pretty, and the Vikings allowed Darnold to hit free agency, but Schneider and second-year head coach Mike MacDonald weren’t deterred. They had a vivid, first-hand recollection of his skill level: Three days before Christmas, Darnold (22 of 35, 246 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions) had thrown an impressive 39-yard touchdown pass to star wide receiver Justin Jefferson in the final minutes to lead the Vikings to a 27-24 victory over the Seahawks in Seattle.

The Seahawks’ pursuit of Darnold snuck up on many NFL observers and proceeded in rapid-fire fashion. While some believed the Las Vegas Raiders would try to sign Darnold, minority owner Tom Brady — a seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback whose opinion held great sway — was not in favor of that approach, according to a source familiar with the franchise’s internal discussions.

Meanwhile, Smith, seeking a lucrative extension from the Seahawks, reacted coldly to the team’s initial offer. The Raiders, having recently hired former Seattle coach Pete Carroll, emerged as a potential trade partner.

As he negotiated the deal that would send the 34-year-old Smith to Las Vegas, Schneider pondered his best options to secure a successor: Darnold, Rodgers and Drew Lock, a former Seahawks backup who spent 2024 with the New York Giants. Rodgers, 41, had not expressed a sense of certainty (via his agent) about his plans, which made Schneider squeamish. There was a higher comfort level with Darnold because of his familiarity with Seattle’s system: MacDonald’s newly hired offensive coordinator, Klint Kubiak, had been the 49ers’ passing game coordinator in 2023.

Schneider had a conversation with O’Connell, the Vikings’ fifth-year coach, who spoke highly of Darnold, hardening the GM’s conviction. The Seahawks ended up signing both Darnold and Lock; in April they drafted ex-Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe in the third round.

Earlier this month, in an OTA workout open to reporters, Darnold threw a pair of red-zone interceptions, prompting Mike Salk of Seattle Sports 710 to ask MacDonald if something other than injury could cause him to start the season with a different starting quarterback. MacDonald gave an emphatic no, calling it a “crazy question.”

Darnold, of course, is very familiar with having his abilities questioned. “I’ve never paid attention to that,” he said. “Because if I did, I’d drive myself insane.”

Even in the wake of last season’s success, and despite his prior experience with Kubiak, Darnold doesn’t purport to have all the answers.

“He wants to be perfect,” Kupp said. “He wants to be right. He wants to be good for the guys. That’s the standard he holds himself to, and I love it. The issue has never been whether he can throw the rock or not. I’ve been watching since he was at USC, and it’s like, ‘Man, he can throw the ball.’”

Said Darnold: “I’m hard on myself — always. I feel I can be a lot more consistent with how I play.”

Specifically, Darnold — based on subsequent film study — believes he must get better at adjusting to the defensive strategies employed by the Lions and Rams last January.

“I feel like LA did very similar things on third down to what Detroit did to us,” Darnold said. “They played man and tried to play some ‘robber’ stuff, and that just gave us some troubles. It gave me some troubles, personally.”

So, too, have MacDonald’s defensive alignments during offseason practices. As he becomes more familiar with various scheme tweaks designed to take away his options downfield, Darnold is determined not to hold the ball too long, even if it means relying more on his athleticism.

“KO and those guys in Minnesota did such a good job — and we do a great job here as well — of giving me answers if they take options away,” Darnold explained. “Like, just go through your progressions and work your feet and if it’s not there take off and run — because there’s no one accounting for the quarterback, unless they play a spy or whatever.

“I learned a lot last season, from those two games especially. At the end of the day, you go through those experiences, you learn, and you get better. I try every single day to get better. That’s it.”