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Brady Henderson
RENTON, Wash. — Sam Darnold got sacked, then got up gingerly.
His head coach got nervous.
It was late in the first quarter of Seattle’s divisional round matchup against the San Francisco 49ers last Saturday at Lumen Field, and it might have been the only tense moment the Seahawks experienced in a 41-6 win that got them into Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against the Los Angeles Rams (6:30 p.m. ET, Fox).
Darnold was playing through an oblique injury he had suffered two days earlier.
The Seahawks and their Pro Bowl quarterback were confident that he’d play despite his questionable designation. But no one could be sure how he’d fare while dealing with the first oblique injury of his career — or what would happen if he took a bad hit.
Almost 11 minutes into the game, Darnold rolled to his right on a bootleg, then broke into a sprint as a 49ers defender gave chase. When safety Malik Mustapha dropped him from behind, he hit the ground hard, and he appeared to be feeling it as he jogged back to the huddle.
On the next play, Darnold delivered a strike to Cooper Kupp for a 21-yard gain, putting enough zip on the ball to drive it almost 37 yards in the air, and enough touch to layer it over an underneath zone defender.
“That was awesome,” coach Mike Macdonald said of the throw. “At that point, I think I exhaled a little bit.”
Darnold would go on to play a mistake-free game, completing 12 of 17 attempts for 124 yards and a touchdown before he was pulled with over nine minutes left. The first playoff victory of his career came two weeks after a 13-3 win over the 49ers in Week 18, which gave the Seahawks a first-round bye as NFC West champions and the conference’s No. 1 seed.
Now comes the biggest game of Darnold’s career against perhaps his toughest opponent — with a ticket to Super Bowl LX on the line.
It was the Rams’ defense, coordinated by Chris Shula, that sacked Darnold nine times in the wild-card round last January, ending his breakthrough Pro Bowl season with the Minnesota Vikings. Shula’s unit then intercepted him four times in the Rams’ win over Seattle in November, and twice more in a December rematch before Darnold and the Seahawks rallied to win in overtime.
In four games against the Rams over the past two seasons, Darnold has 5 touchdown passes, 7 interceptions, 16 sacks and a 1-3 record. He has a Total QBR of 34.3 in those games — his second worst among the 11 opponents he has faced at least twice in that span — compared with 58.4 in every other game since the start of 2024.
Can Darnold, injured oblique and all, help beat his nemesis a second straight time to put the Seahawks back in the Super Bowl for the first time in 11 years?
“Really good team, really good defense, really good scheme,” Darnold said. “Good players. So like always, we’re really excited about this opportunity to play these guys. We’ve just got to have a really good week of practice. For me, I’ve got to continue to attack all the things that I need to attack, just get ready to play these guys, but also just getting my body right to be ready for Sunday.”
ROUND 1
Darnold’s four interceptions in the Seahawks’ 21-19 loss against the Rams at SoFi Stadium in Week 11 had one thing in common: They all came under duress.
On the first pick, by safety Kamren Kinchens, Darnold retreated in the pocket and then threw off his back foot to Cooper Kupp. On the next one, he got drilled by outside linebacker Byron Young as he was releasing a throw to Jaxon Smith-Njigba that cornerback Cobie Durant picked off. Kinchens got him a second time as he was trying to hit tight end Elijah Arroyo with the pocket collapsing around him. Darnold attempted a jump throw to Arroyo after navigating another messy pocket when cornerback Darious Williams nabbed interception No. 4.
Darnold wasn’t sacked in that game, which may have illustrated the problem. Whether or not he was overly intent on avoiding sacks after taking nine of them against the Rams 10 months earlier — as Kinchens surmised afterward — pressure was the common denominator on his four interceptions.
That pressure, combined with the Rams disguising certain looks on the back end of their defense, gave Darnold fits. Afterward, he said he needed to do a better job of recognizing their shell coverages and moving on in his progressions as opposed to locking on to one or two receivers. But the Rams’ pass rush made that easier said than done.
“They do a good job of disguising shell [alignment] and all those things,” Darnold said. “I feel like their pass rush, their linebackers, their safeties all being on the same page and playing really good football, they do it at a high level. They seem like really smart players. But again, those are self-inflicted wounds, turning the ball over like that. Sometimes it’s better just to try to throw the ball away or even take a sack when nothing is there.”
The Seahawks’ top-ranked scoring defense kept them in the game long enough for Darnold to mount a comeback. He led an 11-play, 84-yard touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter that got them to within two points. Then, after they took over at their own 1-yard line with one timeout and 1:41 left, he got them in position for a 61-yard field goal that would have won the game as time expired, but Jason Myers missed. Darnold completed 6 of 9 attempts for 43 yards on that drive, which also included a defensive penalty.
“I think that’s why he’s had such a really good season, because he’s the same guy every day,” offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak said. “Whether he’s having success or it’s not going as good, he’s always the same. He’s really impressive on the sideline and ready to move on. That’s why he is who he is, and that’s how most great quarterbacks are, they just stay the same.”
The Seahawks have not lost since then — but it took an improbable comeback in the second Rams meeting to keep that streak going.
ROUND 2
The two interceptions Darnold threw in the Week 16 rematch had something else in common.
In the third quarter, cornerback Josh Wallace had followed Kupp in motion into the left slot, often a tell of man coverage. Kupp and outside receiver Rashid Shaheed both ran slant routes from that side of the field. But instead of running with Kupp, Wallace settled right in the path of Darnold’s throw to Shaheed.
In the fourth quarter, with the Seahawks facing third-and-goal from the 6-yard line and threatening to cut into the Rams’ 16-point lead, Darnold got fooled again. This time, it was by defensive lineman Kobie Turner, who dropped into coverage and picked off Darnold’s throw into the end zone to Smith-Njigba.
“They do a lot of really good things defensively,” Darnold said this week. “Their scheme is really good. Coach Shula, those guys do a good job coaching those guys up on what to do … The players make it come to life with certain disguises and pressures.”
What followed Darnold’s second interception was a furious comeback from a 30-14 deficit and a wild finish that made Seattle’s 38-37 win one of the games of the year.
It started with a punt return touchdown from Shaheed. Seattle’s defense, in the midst of allowing 581 yards — its most in two seasons under Macdonald — got stops on five straight possessions. Darnold threw a touchdown pass to tight end AJ Barner and converted 2-point attempts after both scores to send the game to overtime, the second one coming when running back Zach Charbonnet grabbed what turned out to be a live ball in the end zone, as other players were walking off the field thinking Darnold’s screen pass had fallen incomplete.
Darnold then answered Matthew Stafford‘s overtime touchdown drive with one of his own, hitting Smith-Njigba in the end zone from 4 yards out. He then won the game with a 2-point conversion to No. 2 tight end Eric Saubert. Darnold completed 4 of 5 attempts for 47 yards on the game-winning drive, plus the 2-point try.
It was the largest fourth-quarter comeback in franchise history, according to ESPN Research. The Seahawks were 0-155-0 when trailing by 16-plus points after three quarters.
“Just shows a true competitor,” Smith-Njigba said of Darnold. “A lot of guys would get down on themselves and give up, lay down, but that’s not what we do, that’s not what he is.”
ROUND 3
Leading up to Sunday’s game, the Seahawks listed Darnold as a limited participant in practice Wednesday and Thursday.
Darnold made it clear after the 49ers game last week that he’d “absolutely” have to continue to manage his oblique injury, while Macdonald said his throwing would be curtailed this week to that end.
But Kubiak said Thursday, “He looks like Sam. He looks healthy to me.”
Darnold averaged 39 attempts in the first two meetings against the Rams’ defense this year. If the pattern follows, Darnold and his oblique will get more of a test on Sunday than what the 49ers and their shorthanded defense presented last week when Darnold threw 17 times before sitting with the game in hand.
Limiting mistakes against the Rams will be paramount, given how close the two previous games against the Rams have been.
According to ESPN Research, this NFC Championship Game will be the first playoff game in NFL history between teams that played two games against each other in the regular season that were each decided by two points or fewer. The Seahawks combined for 57 points and 830 yards in those matchups, nearly identical totals to the Rams’ 58 points and 829 yards.
Darnold and the Seahawks, who enter as 2.5-point favorites, will have the advantage of playing at home. Seattle is 11-1 in playoff games at Lumen Field in the past 20 years. The only loss in that span came to the Rams at the end of the 2020 COVID season, when Seattle had no fans in the stands.
But with a trip to Super Bowl LX on the line, the decibel levels — and the pressure — will be high.
“It’s the NFC Championship, so two best teams in the NFC going at it,” Darnold said. “It’s a really good opportunity to just play good football, have that kind of next-opponent, next-game mentality. We know the stakes … It’s win or go home at this point.”
