It's not an exagerration at all to say that the Seattle Seahawks' 2025 season hingest largely on the performance of new quarterback Sam Darnold.
The 28-year-old Darnold earned a three-year deal worth just over $100 million from the Seahawks this offseason after completing 66.2 percent of his passes for 4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns and 12 interceptions with the Minnesota Vikings last season. Before that, though, the former No. 3 overall pick had been a journeyman, and even a full-time backup with the San Francisco 49ers in 2023.
The Seahawks need the good version of Darnold if their offense is going to thrive in 2025, but they also have to put him in a situation to succeed.
With mandatory minicamp now in the rear-view mirror, it at least seems like Darnold's settling in well.
"Sam is doing a great job," head coach Mike Macdonald said, per the team's website. "Sam is a great feel for the offense right now in terms of growing every day. So you can feel the growth. You can feel the improvement, the confidence that we're doing on that side of the ball and that we're growing. It's exciting to work with. He's a heck of a competitor.
"You know, this time of the year it's hard with all the competition periods, you're trying to create a bunch of situations where there's technically no winner or loser, but you are trying to just try to get great situational work where you're making great decisions, and we're doing that on both sides. Those are fun periods when you feel his competitiveness, and really all three quarterbacks you feel the competitiveness and the sense of improvement every day."
Darnold isn't the only new piece on offense. The wide receiver room is almost entirely different, and Klint Kubiak, whom Darnold worked with in 2023 with the 49ers, takes over as offensive coordinator.
It will take time to get the offense fully in sync, but for what it's worth, Macdonald likes what he's seen so far.
"I think right where they need to be," Macdonald said. "It's tough to assess right now. It really is. It's going to come to life when you can separate the defense. You know, we are on some of these runs and then all of a sudden it's 2nd-and-4 rather than, hey, we're just kind of -- looks like a soft spot right there or we broke a tackle. That's where it really comes to life when you are wearing defenses down, and then here comes the actions and the movements that you have to honor the run game.
"So I think we'll have a better feel a couple of weeks into training camp. At that point you're going to start making decisions on narrowing down schematically of where we want to kind of center our focus both personnel-wise, and you can't be doing everything all the time, so you're going to have to make some decisions as camp starts to unfold."
