Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald watches his team play against the Arizona Cardinals during the third quarter at State Farm Stadium in Glendale on Dec. 8, 2024. Michael Chow/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Mike Macdonald makes expectations clear for Seahawks and Sam Darnold

Originally posted on Seattle Seahawks on SI
By Tim Weaver | Last updated Apr 3, 2025 12:30 PM ET

If you've been paying attention to the Seattle Seahawks since the beginning of the Pete Carroll era, you know this team doesn't do rebuilds. Seattle might "re-tool" or reshape their roster, but they have never actually blown the whole thing up and pressed the reset button - aside from the initial 2010 campaign when they made over 300 total moves and turned over almost the entire roster.

Since then, they've gone through a few different iterations, including the peak Legion of Boom years (2011-2015), followed by what we'll call the Russell Wilson era (2016-2021), then the brief Geno Smith era (2022-2024). The latest turn for the franchise came last month, when the Seahawks front office made several huge moves aimed at creating more flexibility and extending their playoff window.

The centerpiece in the collection was exchanging Geno Smith for Sam Darnold. While most analysts consider this a downgrade it seems NFL execs disagree - and the Seahawks have high expectations for this newly-remade version of the Seahawks. Here's what head coach Mike Macdonald said about it at the owners' meetings earlier this week, according to Mike Dugar at The Athletic.

"Macdonald said he “absolutely” believes Seattle can win the Super Bowl with Darnold... 'We have to create an environment where we get the best version of Sam... you've got to figure out how to get guys open, solve some of the problems guys are coming across. We have to do that with Sam just like the rest of the team. But yeah, we can definitely win with Sam, absolutely."

We consider Darnold a (modest) upgrade over Smith right now - but there's a decent chance he can continue to build on what he did last year and raise his game to another level. That would make him a huge step up eventually - and the Seahawks are getting him for a significantly lower price than what it would have cost to keep Geno Smith.

You can question the decision not to go more aggressively after free agent offensive linemen, and you can question the size and length of the Cooper Kupp and DeMarcus Lawrence deals. You can't argue Geno is so much better than Darnold that he's worth keeping over an extra $10+ million a year in cap space, getting seven years younger at QB and picking up a top-100 pick.

Macdonald is right to assume the Seahawks can win - and win big - with Darnold leading them and the same would have been true of Geno Smith. Either way, taking their team from 9-10 win territory to genuine conference contender was going to require upgrading that offensive line significantly. Whether they can actually get the job done is another question, but going from Smith to Darnold buys the Seahawks more time, more cap space and more draft capital to do it.

This article first appeared on Seattle Seahawks on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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