Drew Lock is about to become the latest backup quarterback pressed into duty for the Seahawks, and the timing puts his name in a very small club.
With Sam Darnold out because of a glute injury, Lock is slated to start Seattle’s Week 2 game against the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. It will be just the sixth time in the past 15 seasons that a backup quarterback has opened a game for the Seahawks. Before that stretch of relative stability, Seattle cycled through 19 backup QB starts from 2008-11.
Lock’s turn invites a quick look back at the recent fill-in starts that have popped up in Seattle.
The most recent example came from Lock himself in 2023, when he stepped in for Geno Smith late in the season and went 1-1. His best moment came under the lights in Week 15 against the Philadelphia Eagles, when he guided Seattle on a 10-play, 92-yard march and finished it with a go-ahead 29-yard touchdown pass to Jaxon Smith-Njigba with 28 seconds left in a 20-17 win.
Lock went 22-of-33 for 208 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions in that game. A week earlier, he threw for 269 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions on 22-of-31 passing in a 28-16 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
Before that, Geno Smith was the fill-in in 2021, when Russell Wilson missed Weeks 6-8 with a broken finger. Wilson had started 158 of 161 possible regular-season games during his Seahawks run, and those three absences opened the door for Smith.
He finished 1-2, completing 70.5% of his passes for 571 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. Seattle dropped a 23-20 overtime game to the Pittsburgh Steelers and a 13-10 decision to the New Orleans Saints before rolling past the Jacksonville Jaguars 31-7.
Charlie Whitehurst handled backup duty across two different seasons, making starts in 2010 and 2011. He went 1-1 in place of Matt Hasselbeck in 2010 and 0-2 while filling in for Tarvaris Jackson in 2011.
In those four games, Whitehurst completed 52.1% of his passes for 454 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions. His biggest start came in the 2010 regular-season finale, a winner-take-all matchup with the St.
Louis Rams for the NFC West title. Whitehurst completed 22 of 36 passes for 192 yards and a touchdown in a 16-6 Seattle win that sent the Seahawks to the playoffs.
The next week brought one of the franchise’s defining moments: Hasselbeck returned, and Marshawn Lynch broke loose for his iconic “Beast Quake” run in a wild-card upset of the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints.
Seneca Wallace had the busiest run of any Seahawks backup on this list, making 14 fill-in starts for Hasselbeck from 2006 through 2009. He went 5-9 overall, including 2-2 in 2006, 3-5 in 2008 and 0-2 in 2009. Wallace completed 60.1% of his passes for 2,817 yards, 21 touchdowns and nine interceptions, and he added 207 rushing yards and a score.
Charlie Frye rounds out the recent group. In 2008, with Hasselbeck and Wallace both hurt, he started a 27-17 loss to the Packers in Week 6. Frye completed 12 of 23 passes for 83 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions.
Now Lock gets his next shot, and Seattle’s recent history shows that when the backup is called, the Seahawks have seen just about everything.
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