The search for “the next Sam Darnold” has become a favorite pastime for NFL watchers, but the Seattle Seahawks already have the real thing.
That’s the basic problem with the latest round of quarterback comparisons floating around social media. Podcasters such as Theo Ash of the Stay Hot Pod have tried to identify the next Darnold, and in Ash’s case, the pick is Justin Fields, who currently plays for the team...?
Well, who can keep track? (OK, he's with the Kansas City Chiefs.)
The idea sounds tidy enough on the surface: a former first-round quarterback who bounced around before finally settling in. But the comparison falls apart fast.
Darnold and Fields are not the same player, not close. Darnold brings good athleticism, sure, but he’s more of a pocket-passer.
Fields has elite athleticism, yet he has never matched Darnold’s accuracy and doesn’t have the arm strength of the underrated Seattle QB.
That’s the key detail the “next Darnold” crowd keeps skipping over. Darnold had already shown real growth before arriving in Seattle.
He spent one season with the Minnesota Vikings and proved he was a worthy QB1. Fields, by contrast, is still trying to find success and has never done that.
None of this is meant as a shot at the former Ohio State quarterback. It’s more that the label is easy to throw around without much effort. Any first-round pick who hasn’t put it together yet can be slapped with the “next Darnold” tag, and the argument doesn’t need much proof to sound clever.
Anthony Richardson of the Indianapolis Colts could get dragged into the same conversation, too. But he’s not really a clean fit for Darnold either. Richardson has as much in common with Fields as he does with Darnold: he’s gifted athletically, but the passing accuracy and play-to-play decision-making haven’t been there.
The numbers make the separation pretty clear. In eight NFL seasons, Darnold has completed 62.3 percent of his passes.
Over the last two years, he’s been at 66.2 percent or better each season, with 35 touchdown passes one year and 25 the next - one with the Vikings and one with the Seahawks. In both of those recent seasons, his quarterback rating was at least 99.1.
Fields’ résumé doesn’t come close to that level. His best quarterback rating in five seasons is 93.3.
He has completed 61.4 percent of his passes, with a high of 65.8, and he has never thrown more than 17 touchdown passes in a season. The issue isn’t just that the ceiling hasn’t been high enough; it’s that the efficiency hasn’t been there either.
He may have already played as well as he can.
Richardson’s numbers are even rougher. Entering his fourth season, he has more interceptions than touchdowns, 13 to 11. His quarterback rating sits at 67.8, and his completion percentage is 50.6.
Strip away the running ability and the highlight-reel flashes, and the job description for an NFL quarterback still comes down to the same thing: operate from the pocket, make accurate throws, and help win late in the season. Darnold has done that with the Seahawks, and he hinted at it the year before in Minnesota.
Fields and Richardson haven’t. There isn’t a next Sam Darnold. There’s just Sam Darnold, and he’s in Seattle.
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Seahawks Rookie Suddenly Faces A Critical Camp Twist
Training camp has a way of reshuffling a depth chart before the pads even come on, and that is the spot Deven Eastern finds himself in now. The Seahawks seventh-round pick is working from behind after landing on the physically unable to perform list, which immediately changes the conversation at backup nose tackle and gives undrafted rookie Uso Seumalo a cleaner path to make his case.
Seattle is expected to carry at most two nose guards, with Brandon Pili already looking like one of them, so every rep behind him matters. Eastern still has the draft pedigree, but Seumalo now has the kind of opening rookies rarely get, a chance to turn camp availability into a real roster argument while the Seahawks sort out how they want to fill one of the most tightly contested spots on the defense. [Read more 🡒]