Seahawks OC may have called Sam Darnold out ahead of massive game vs. 49ers

The 13-3 Seattle Seahawks will claim the NFC West division title and home-field advantage through the conference portion of the playoffs if they defeat the 12-4 San Francisco 49ers at San Francisco's Levi's Stadium on Saturday night. 

On Thursday, Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak may have called quarterback Sam Darnold out while speaking about the club's turnover woes throughout the season. 

Seahawks "always preaching" about avoiding turnovers

"...Something that we’re always preaching, things that we’ve got to improve on," Kubiak said about the Seahawks' need to protect the football, per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. "Obviously, we want to maximize our possessions, and we’re giving away points when we give the ball away. So, whether it’s decision making, throwing the ball, holding onto it, then protecting our quarterback so that we’re not getting sack fumbles. There’s a lot of things that go on there, but something’s got to get better if we want to be a championship team."

The StatMuse website shows that the Seahawks committed more turnovers (28) than every team except the Minnesota Vikings (29) from Week 1 through Week 17. Meanwhile, Darnold began Friday responsible for a league-worst 20 turnovers on the season. 

Has Sam Darnold grown after previous big-game struggles? 

While with the Vikings last season, Darnold endured nightmare outings in a massive Week 18 defeat and in a wild-card playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams. On Thursday, he indicated those experiences will keep him from seeing "ghosts" on the first Saturday of 2026. 

"Great point about going through it last year for myself, just having that experience of going through a game like that," Darnold explained, per Ari Horton of the Seahawks' website. "I think the biggest thing is just treating it like another game. Understanding kind of when you get out there, people make it out to be bigger, and it's primetime, all that stuff, fans are going to be great. So, understanding that it's going to have that type of feel to it, but once you get out there between the lines, between the whistles, it's football. And that's the best part about this game."

As of Friday morning, DraftKings Sportsbook had the Seahawks as 1.5-point road favorites over the Niners. The winner of the game's turnover battle could determine which team enters the playoffs as the NFC's No. 1 seed.