SAN FRANCISCO -- When the Seattle Seahawks faced the Los Angeles Rams for the first time this season, Sam Darnold was in the midst of a nightmare: a four-interception clunker from a prior time in his career against the same team that had bedeviled him in the playoffs last season, essentially sealing his exit from Minnesota.
Seattle’s assistant head coach, Leslie Frazier, went to Darnold on the sideline. He told him that, before the game was over, Darnold would be in a position to lead the Seahawks to the game-winning score. Frazier was right. The Seahawks lost that November game on a missed field-goal attempt from 61 yards out as time expired. The result, though, did not matter nearly as much to Seattle's fortunes as the reaction to that brief conversation between Darnold and Frazier.
“He put his head down and said, ‘I got you coach,’ ” Frazier said. “That speaks to who he is. He could keep it together to be able to, in that moment, put all that stuff behind him. That was a tough day for him personally and he rose above it.”
That is Darnold’s remarkable career arc in a nutshell, and it is the flatline mindset that has delivered him, and in turn the Seahawks, to the brink of a championship.
From the day in 2018 when he was drafted third overall by the New York Jets at age 20, Darnold’s path to the Super Bowl has been dotted by potholes deep enough to permanently derail anybody. What has stood out, over and over, through every stop, is Darnold’s uncanny ability to get through the crater and keep going with almost no perceptible permanent damage to his psyche or personality.
You won’t get Darnold to say a bad word about any of the things that have happened to him or places he has been. He remains as chill now as he was as a California kid throwing a football in the surf, unaffected and unpretentious enough to still wear the same Vans sneakers he always has, to show up to his first Seattle press conference in a flannel shirt. He chalks every twist and turn to learning experiences that helped him become the player he is now. That was not a coping mechanism he developed in the NFL; he got to the league that way.
“I think a lot of it stems from my family,” Darnold said Monday during Super Bowl LX Opening Night. “My dad was a plumber, my mom was a P.E. teacher. No matter what kind of days they had, they were always in the best mood for me and my sister growing up. No matter what happened at work, my dad was always out there playing catch with me after work. I feel like I naturally learned to be resilient and take it one day at a time.”
Talking to people who have played with and coached Darnold over the years -- from his teenage years at USC, to the Jets and Panthers, to the 49ers and Vikings and finally to the Seahawks -- the stories are remarkably consistent, like the subject of the stories himself.
“Quarterbacks have pressure-cooker positions,” said Max Browne, who was Darnold’s teammate at USC and competed with him for the starting-quarterback job. “Sam is the classic 'never got too high with the highs and never got too low with the lows.' Whether it was when I beat him out for the job, or he had just thrown a winning touchdown in the Rose Bowl, he was the same exact dude.”
That actually made Darnold the perfect personality to thrive in New York. What stood out about Darnold with the Jets? That, as young as he was, he was an adult upon arrival. No entourage followed him to help him get settled. He hung out with all of his teammates and was so young that they couldn’t take him to certain clubs, remembers former Jets running back Bilal Powell.
In the first summer after Darnold was drafted, Jets players held a crawfish party. Powell’s young son kept going up to his parents and telling them Sam was playing basketball with him. The Powells thought they were the only ones who brought their kids to the party, so they wondered who this "Sam" was that their son was playing with. Finally, while everyone was getting food, Powell’s son pointed to Darnold and said, “There’s Sam!”
“It was Sam Darnold the whole time,” Powell said. “That’s a highlight of who he was as a person.”
Darnold was the starter from Day 1 of his rookie season. Even with the benefit of hindsight, it’s hard to blame the Jets for that decision. Darnold was a high first-round pick, with a coach and a general manger on the hot seat. The team and its fans had long been searching for its franchise quarterback, and the Jets brass saw early on the raw skills and the mindset that have allowed Darnold to finally fulfill his promise. His very first regular-season pass was an interception that was returned for a touchdown. Powell went to him and told him he was fine.
“You could never see his emotion -- he never wore it on his sleeve,” Powell said.
That was true off the field, too. One time, Darnold appeared in the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column. A public relations staff member had to tell him. Darnold’s reaction: “OK.”
“He never batted an eye,” said Bucs head coach Todd Bowles, who was the Jets’ coach in Darnold’s rookie season. “He was outstanding. Unbelievable. Yes, sir. No, sir. He tried to do everything the right way. He never got frustrated. He always wanted to know what he could work out to get better. He kept his West Coast attitude.”
After his rookie season, Browne and Darnold met up for a drink. Darnold told Browne about some of the events from that first year.
“He said some comment, ‘At the end of the day, I’m a starting quarterback in the NFL. Things are pretty good.’ ” Browne remembers.
Things would get worse, of course. There were coaching changes and injuries. In his second season, Darnold was mic’d up for a game against the rival Patriots. He threw four interceptions in the 33-0 loss and, memorably, he was caught on the microphone saying he was “seeing ghosts.” That he was just repeating verbiage a coach had used earlier has been lost to history and headlines. “Seeing ghosts” has stuck to Darnold to this day, tagging him as a quarterback who might be susceptible to being confused by a defense.
Again, someone had to tell Darnold that his comment had been captured for all to hear. A staffer went to Darnold assuming he’d be angry, and that he would never want to wear a microphone again. Darnold’s reaction went something like this: “Alright, whatever.”
Joe Flacco joined the Jets during the 2020 season, Darnold’s last in New York, when the team started the season 0-13. Flacco remembers that Darnold was worried about tiny little details, some being things he truly shouldn't have been concerned about. But Darnold hadn’t played enough to know that yet. And Flacco remembers Darnold’s toughness. He wanted to keep playing, despite how poorly the team was doing.
“I’ve seen it -- it can completely blow you up and destroy your confidence,” Flacco said. “That wasn’t the case. He wasn’t super down on himself. He was able to stay very positive and keep awesome relationships with teammates.”
Browne saw that in college, too. And he thinks he knows how Darnold has been able to be resilient throughout his career.
“I feel like he never really wrapped up his entire identity in being a quarterback,” said Browne, who is now an analyst for ESPN. “Sam worked hard and he takes care of his business and he’s competitive. As quarterbacks, there’s stress when you’re learning a playbook, you can sense anxiety when they throw an interception. Sam just never had that. I never got the sense he processed the downside the way others did, and I think that helped him weather the turns of his career.”
Instability and disappointment followed Darnold after he was traded to Carolina in 2021. What struck teammates about those two seasons in Charlotte was Darnold’s continued willingness to put himself on the line, no matter how bad the circumstances. He played, one teammate said, for the guys around him, not for himself -- and that never changed, even with more coaching upheaval.
Still, the Panthers allowed Darnold’s contract to expire and he signed with the 49ers as a free agent in 2023 to back up Brock Purdy. Darnold was fully perceived as a bust by then, likely consigned to being a career backup and perhaps a spot starter. But that season quietly spent on the bench learning from one of the league’s best offensive minds in Kyle Shanahan, it turned out, was the pivot point in his career.
“What happened in San Francisco is what he needed when he first came in -- a year to develop,” said receiver Robbie Chosen, who played with Darnold in New York and Carolina and remains a friend. “He just hadn’t had a chance to develop yet. It was picture perfect for him.”
The Minnesota Vikings were the beneficiary of that reset, and that is where Darnold fully blossomed. He was never intended to be the full-season starter, but when first-round draft pick J.J. McCarthy suffered a season-ending knee injury during the preseason, Darnold’s career took another turn, this time with Kevin O’Connell molding him. Grant Udinski is now the Jacksonville Jaguars’ offensive coordinator, but he was on the staffs in both Carolina and Minnesota when Darnold was there and he saw the development up close.
“He had been through a lot, especially in such a short time frame, he had so many experiences that he wasn’t supported the way he should have been,” Udinski said. “It’s not like he lacked confidence. I just don’t think he felt the same support or ability to fully be himself that maybe, if he was empowered as a quarterback and a great teammate, he would have felt.”
He was embraced in Minnesota and, as at every other stop, loved by his teammates across all position groups. That was obvious after a late-December victory over the Packers that set up a season finale against the Lions for the division title and NFC’s top seed. Against Green Bay, Darnold threw for 377 yards and three touchdowns in what was, to that point, the best performance of his career. O’Connell put the game in Darnold’s hands when he called three passes with the Vikings needing a first down to seal the win and hold off a Packers comeback attempt. Darnold completed all three, getting out of the pocket to buy time. His teammates waited for Darnold to get to the locker room and then lifted him on their shoulders to celebrate, with O’Connell looking on.
“That’s not something he would ever ask for,” Udinski said.
The two losses that followed -- to the Lions in the regular-season finale and to the Rams in the Wild Card Round -- harkened back to earlier days. Darnold looked rattled in both, and was sacked a total of 11 times. Minnesota was eliminated and the old doubts about Darnold resurfaced. The Vikings opted to go with McCarthy as their 2025 starter. That made Darnold a free agent.
In Seattle last offseason, new Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, who had been on the 49ers staff when Darnold was there, had a strong conviction about Darnold. The Seahawks spent the NFL Scouting Combine assessing their quarterbacking options. They made a move that is almost unheard of -- they traded Geno Smith, who had played well for the Seahawks -- and signed Darnold to a three-year deal.
“He caught a lot of grief for a couple of shaky games there at the end,” Seahawks general manager John Schneider said. “It’s the ultimate team sport. In retrospect, that’s probably why we were able to acquire him. We’re blessed that he’s been amazing.”
This wouldn’t be a Darnold season without at least one more opportunity to prove his resilience. His play has mostly been stellar, but that November game against the Rams was that moment. The Seahawks lost, for the last time to date, and Darnold shouldered the blame. Afterward, linebacker Ernest Jones IV made clear he was not interested in revisiting the old narrative, offering an extraordinary defense that was notable not just for its affection but also that it came from a member of the defense.
“If we want to try to define Sam by this game, man, Sam's had us in every f------ game,” Jones said at the time. “So for him to sit there and say, 'Oh, that's my fault,' no, it's not. There were plays that defensively we could have made, there were opportunities where we could have got better stops. It's football, man. He's our quarterback, we've got his back, and if you've got anything to say, quite frankly, f--- you."
There had been small redemption stories strewn throughout Darnold’s career and there were still some left. He beat that same Rams team twice later in the season, including in a superb NFC title bout performance, when he outdueled Matthew Stafford in the game of his career. His coach, Mike Macdonald, delighted in the idea that that performance had shut up a lot of Darnold’s detractors.
Those critical voices have quieted these last two weeks, as Darnold has been celebrated for his play and also his forbearance. During Opening Night, he giddily accepted a picture of the Marlboro Man -- who was actually portrayed by Darnold’s grandfather -- with Darnold’s own face superimposed on the portrait. He was asked by a reporter for his advice to kids.
“The only thing that matters is you believe in yourself,” he offered. “I knew I could do this at a high level. I knew, at some point, I would get the opportunity. Even if I didn’t, I knew I did everything I could to become a better player, year in and year out.”
Last week, the Vikings fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in part for how badly their quarterback situation has played out. And now, the NFL planets have aligned to provide Darnold with the ultimate redemption opportunity: To win the Super Bowl, he must defeat the team against which he once saw ghosts. It would be a full circle moment for a player whose career may have taken the long way but who never really changed along the way.
Last week, Browne was FaceTiming with a close friend from high school who is now the Seahawks' equipment manager. Darnold popped into the frame.
“He’s about to start in the Super Bowl and it’s the same disposition, the same smile,” Browne said. “As if he’s 18 years old and we’ve having a party at my college apartment.”