The ongoing Sam Darnold redemption tour continues to be one of the NFL’s more positive storylines as Darnold and his Seattle Seahawks prepare to face the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX this coming Sunday night.
During the “Super Bowl XL Opening Night” festivities on Monday, Darnold opened up about how far he has come as a starting quarterback.
Sam Darnold thankful to be with Seahawks after previous stops
“Seattle, right when I got here, it felt like home, and it feels like home,” Darnold explained, per Fox Sports. “I’m just so thankful for [Seahawks general manager John Schneider] and [Seattle head coach Mike Macdonald] believing in me and all of the players in that locker room for believing in me. For me to just be able to go out there and do nothing more than my job on every single play. That’s a very secure feeling as a quarterback.”
Darnold’s long-term future as an NFL QB1 came into question when the New York Jets gave up on him just three seasons after they made him the third overall pick of the 2018 NFL Draft. He then failed to establish himself as a long-term answer for the Carolina Panthers across a pair of campaigns before he spent the 2023 season as a backup with the San Francisco 49ers.
Darnold became a revelation with the Minnesota Vikings during the 2024 season, so much so that the decision to let him reach free agency in March 2025 is likely one reason the Vikings fired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah last week. In his most recent outing, Darnold passed for 346 yards with three touchdowns and zero interceptions in the Seahawks’ 31-27 NFC Championship Game win over the Rams.
Sam Darnold has one regret about Jets tenure
“I would have loved to get drafted to New York and have that be my home for 20 years, but it just didn’t work out that way,” Darnold added. “Same thing in Carolina and San Francisco. That was a great place for me to learn. In Minnesota, I feel like I had a really great opportunity with really good players and really good coaches to show not people, but show myself what I can do on a football field, and I think people saw that.”
As of Tuesday morning, DraftKings Sportsbook continued to list Darnold as the betting favorite at +115 odds to claim Super Bowl MVP honors this coming Sunday. That’s quite remarkable considering some thought Darnold was still seeing “ghosts” during games this past November.
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