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Darnold Won the Whole Thing and Still Can’t Watch the Tape
Sam Darnold went on a podcast and did the one thing no Super Bowl-winning quarterback is supposed to do: he reviewed his own ring-night performance and gave it a thumbs-down. “I didn’t play great in the Super Bowl,” Darnold said, per a transcription from NFL Media. “I missed way too many throws. We still won. Our defense balled out. I didn’t turn the ball over, which helped.”
He is not wrong, which is the annoying part. Seattle’s offense found the end zone exactly once in the 29-13 win over New England. The throws were spotty. The defense was the headliner. What kept the night clean was that Darnold didn’t put the ball on the ground a single time, after leading the league in regular-season turnovers and then posting zero in the playoffs. The arc of that man’s season is a graph that should not be allowed to exist.
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Offensive touchdowns Seattle managed in the 29-13 Super Bowl win. Darnold’s contribution to the cause was mostly not breaking it.
Here’s what I keep coming back to. Most quarterbacks who finally summit the mountain after a decade of being labeled a bust spend the offseason cashing the vindication check. Darnold cashed nothing. He has a ring on his finger and a grievance in his chest, and as far as Seattle is concerned, the grievance is the more useful of the two.
It also lines up neatly with everything else happening in the building. Brian Fleury, his seventh coordinator in six seasons, has the offense installing smoothly, and the front office has quietly handed Darnold the keys without an extension this offseason. A quarterback who watches his own championship film and finds reasons to be irritated is exactly the quarterback you want walking into a Hard Knocks training camp as the defending champ.
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He has a ring on his finger and a grievance in his chest, and as far as Seattle is concerned, the grievance is the more useful of the two.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
The same podcast run had Darnold crediting his year with the 49ers for giving him what he called a “PhD in football” under Kyle Shanahan. Funny how the doctorate only started paying out once he left the program. NBC Sports Bay Area
HBO’s Hard Knocks crew lands in Renton with the series debuting August 11, the first time the show has ever followed a reigning champion. Somewhere a producer is praying Darnold says something about missing throws on camera. He will. Sports Video Group
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
The keys to the QB2 job in Los Angeles have officially been handed to two unproven arms, and per a Rams insider, neither Stetson Bennett nor first-round rookie Ty Simpson managed to separate this spring. McVay says he’s not adding a veteran. So the insurance policy behind a 38-year-old Matthew Stafford is a coin flip nobody wants to call. Bold plan for a Super Bowl favorite. Stafford’s hamstrings are doing a lot of trust-falling this season.
NINERS
San Francisco’s Maxx Crosby infatuation got a new chapter from 49ers on SI’s Grant Cohn, who said the team is genuinely interested because Crosby would fit the locker room, attend UFC fights with Nick Bosa, and hang out with George Kittle. A franchise that managed 20 sacks all of last season is scouting a pass rusher’s social calendar. The football case writes itself, fellas. Maybe lead with that one.
CARDINALS
Arizona announced its training camp slate and will be among the first teams in the league to report, with veterans and rookies due at State Farm Stadium on July 22. Nothing motivates an early start quite like a long offseason of finishing nowhere near January. Show up early, beat the traffic, miss the playoffs.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This undrafted nose tackle out of Boston College signed with Seattle in 1982, spent all 15 of his NFL seasons with the Seahawks, and still holds the franchise record for career games played. Who is he?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
Joe Nash. He played a franchise-record 218 games, all in Seattle, and in 1984 became the first Seahawks defensive lineman ever to earn a Pro Bowl nod.
Got a Question for the Mailbag?
Send your franchise-tag anxieties, your cap-math fever dreams, and your unhinged training camp predictions. The good ones get answered, the great ones get roasted, and your name gets immortalized next to a city of your choosing. The building’s empty for a month, so I’ve got nothing but time.
Thirty-one days until the cameras show up and the quiet ends. Until then, watch the tape. — The Rooster