Sam Darnold’s night against Kansas City gave Seattle exactly the kind of answer that gets a quarterback label flipped in a hurry.
For one half, the Seahawks starter kept making the kind of decisions that had fueled the turnover noise around him. Then the game turned, and Darnold spent the entire second half protecting the football in Seattle’s prime-time win over the Chiefs. Against Patrick Mahomes and the previously unbeaten Kansas City team, he finished 20-of-28 for 257 yards, one touchdown and one interception.
The cleaner stretch after halftime was the part that stood out. Darnold went 7 of 10 for 79 yards in the second half and added 10 yards on a third-down scramble that helped keep a third-quarter field goal drive alive.
Seattle’s defense made sure that calm approach mattered. Leonard Williams and the front limited Kenneth Walker, the NFL’s leading rusher and a former Seattle draft pick, to 36 yards on 14 carries, and Kansas City managed only three points.
That performance was enough for Mark Schlereth to call it “a redemption game” Monday on Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob. Schlereth, who won three Super Bowls as an offensive lineman, pointed to the quarterback’s response after the game’s lone real mistake: a red-zone interception late in the first half that wiped out at least three points.
Schlereth said the play was not all on Darnold. He walked through a mesh concept, explaining that the receivers should cross from opposite sides about five or six yards deep, but Seattle’s targets wound up colliding on the end line.
“But that’s one you gotta just fire out the back of the end zone,” Schlereth said.
“The bottom line, though, is your ability to bounce back from that and not let it affect you, I think is huge,” he said. “He did look the part. He looked really, really sharp.”
The rebound mattered because it came after a messy run for Darnold. He missed time with a glute injury while Drew Lock played well in two games.
In Week 3, Darnold threw two interceptions against the Washington Commanders, including a fourth-quarter pick-six in a 33-31 loss. After a win over the Los Angeles Chargers, Seattle then lost three-point games to the San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos, with Darnold tossing two interceptions in each.
“He’s just gonna make less of those boneheaded mistakes going forward,” Schlereth said.
If that proves true, the conversation around Seattle and the final year of Darnold’s contract changes fast. The Seahawks gave him a $100.5 million deal over three years, and he followed that with the franchise’s second Super Bowl title. Now he is tied for the NFL lead with eight interceptions and sits near the bottom among starters in passing yards and passer rating, while Lock, through seven seasons, still has not shown he can be a true QB1.
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