Seattle Seahawks' One Big Question: Can Sam Darnold Be More Than A One-Hit Wonder?

Which, of course, had everybody forgetting how great Darnold was in (most of) the regular season.

Seattle general manager John Schneider and new Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak were two people who saw the positives, obviously.

"Yeah, you see the tape, the tape tells it all," Kubiak said in June of Darnold's ascent to the mandatory leadership position, and how he's developed since the San Francisco days. "He grew a lot, he took an opportunity there and ran with it. And he's been doing a great job for us here. He's studying, he's teaching the young guys, he's helping me get the system taught.

"We're putting our own system together, not giving away any trade secrets, but right now just putting in some base offense, and having those guys go out and execute every day."

Kubiak had the New Orleans Saints’ offense humming in 2024 before injuries and roster mediocrity took over. The Saints came out with a 47-10 win over the Carolina Panthers, and a 44-19 win over the Dallas Cowboys before regressing to the mean, and Kubiak set Derek Carr up with three primary constructs: Putting the quarterback under center, using a ton of play-action, and augmenting his route concepts with pre-snap motion.

Well, last season under Kevin O’Connell, Darnold’s stat lines under those three concepts were as follows.

Under center: 113 of 161 for 1,567 yards, 891 air yards, a league-high 16 touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 129.1.

Play-action: 119 of 166 for 1,616 yards, 825 air yards, 14 touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 125.5.

Pre-snap motion: 243 of 366 for 2,835 yards, 1,599 air yards, a league-high 27 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, and a passer rating of 102.9.

All three at the same time: 66 of 96 for 912 yards, 463 air yards, eight touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 126.7.

Yes, it helps that Darnold was with the 49ers in 2023 when Kubiak was Kyle Shanahan’s passing game coordinator. That’s where the comfort and familiarity come from. But both Kubiak and Darnold have to know how well Darnold works in Kubiak’s primary concepts, and that had to be a big reason the Seahawks dropped the hammer on this switch.

Now, it's up to Darnold to amplify the great parts of his 2024 season, and transcend the stuff that turned outright disastrous down the stretch.

"I was waiting for someone to bring that up, by the way," Darnold said of the rough patch at his first Seahawks presser. "I appreciate that. It's fair. You get all the way to that point, and you have the season that we had offensively as a team, and at the end of the day only one team can win the Super Bowl. Unfortunately we weren't that team. But I learned a ton from those last two games, especially, playing Detroit and playing L.A. We are going to see L.A. twice a year, obviously, playing in this division and really looking forward to that. It's just continuing to learn. Learning things about yourself, what they did schematically, and yeah, that's basically all you can do is just learn from those experiences."

If Darnold has learned, the Seahawks could be in pretty good shape. They're in tune for a top-five defense, given the personnel in place and Macdonald's particular genius in that department. And while Seattle couldn't steal Justin Jefferson to be Darnold's main man once again, there is talent in the receiver corps if Jaxon Smith-Njigba keeps up his top-tier development and Cooper Kupp stays healthy. And Kubiak looks to be a significant upgrade over former OC Ryan Grubb, who seemed overmatched in 2024.

But if Darnold's one positive season is all there is, these Seahawks will be in for a rough ride, especially since they already had Geno Smith as their established guy... and the one former Jet who has proven able to fly for more than one year.