The Seattle Seahawks are either going to be a surprise NFC contender or an only-average team this year, depending on how things go for Sam Darnold. If he's able to pick up where he left off with the Minnesota Vikings, then Seattle will have scored a serious upgrade over Geno Smith at quarterback, and they should be able to at least compete with any team in the conference.
According to an analysis by Kristopher Knox at Bleacher Repot, Darnold's upside is the single biggest reason why the Seahawks should feel optimistic going into training camp at the end of the month.
"There's no guarantee that Darnold will replicate the success he had with the Vikings last season. There are reasons to believe that he'll instead revert to the subpar form (83.9 career passer rating) he showed before joining Minnesota. But if Darnold does pan out, Seattle might have itself a top-10 signal-caller for the next decade-plus."
While Darnold's upside is a good choice, it's far from a guarantee to work out for the Seahawks. Any number of things could go wrong with this gamble, especially given the team's long-standing issues with interior pass protection.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball the Seahawks do have a sure thing to bank on: Mike Macdonald's talented and intelligent defense. Not only does Seattle have high-quality starters at all three levels of their defense, they have one of the best defensive playcallers in the league right now, one who turned a good defense into the best in the NFL in just two years at his last stop.
The Seahawks' defense may have finished last season with nothing-special numbers for the year - however that's a poor indication of how well they played since picking up Ernest Jones around the bye week. Not long after they added Coby Bryant to the starting lineup, and that turned out to be the one missing piece to the puzzle.
Down the stretch Seattle's defense was performing at a top-five level, and since then they've retained all their core pieces while adding versatile new weapons up front with DeMarcus Lawrence and on the back end in Nick Emmanwori.
Seattle's offense could go either way depending on any number of factors - but this defense should be one of the league's best if their key pieces can avoid major injuries. That's a solid foundation for the rest of this team to build on and should be the real reason they're hopeful going into 2025.
