Seahawks QB Sam Darnold's 2025 numbers tell 2 distinctly different stories

As you can see, Darnold went from playing better than he ever has before - including with the Vikings in 2024 - to performing much closer to what we saw from him in the second leg of his career in Carolina.

So, what happened?

The simplest way to answer that question is that teams started defending Darnold differently.

The slide began with a sloppy second half in a blowout win over the Arizona Cardinals that mostly went unnoticed. The following week Darnold ran into a brick wall in the form of the LA Rams' defense, which was determined to flip the script regarding how Darnold had to read the field.

From the beginning of the season, Seattle's opponents were determined to stop their rushing attack. Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet faced tough sledding every game as they consistently had to work against base defenses and loaded boxes. On the flipside, that made Darnold's workload much easier, as he had fewer defenders to account for on the back end and easier reads to make.

The Rams decided to go 180 degrees the other way, dropping back into very light personnel and forcing Darnold to make throws against dime looks, often disguising their coverages along the way.

It worked, and Darnold put in arguably the worst game of his pro career (and that's saying something), throwing four interceptions in an excruciating two-point loss for the Seahawks.

Darnold hasn't hit rock bottom like that again since Week 11, but other teams have picked up on what the Rams did well against him and have copied some of it to varying degrees of success. Darnold had a strong game against the Titans and a great second half against the Falcons, but otherwise his numbers have been average-at-best since that big shift brought by the Rams.

While Darnold will eventually have to adjust to how defenses are playing him, the good news is that Seattle's run game is starting to pick up momentum just in time for the playoffs, taking advantage of those light boxes.

If Walker and Charbonnet can build on what they've done the last couple of weeks, we may finally be seeing a truly-balanced version of Seattle's offense for the first time this year.