One of the biggest talking points coming out of the Seattle Seahawks’ Thursday night outing against the Arizona Cardinals is the current state of the NFL’s kick off rules. Nobody seems to like the fact that a kick being short of the ‘landing zone’ is enough to set your opponent up for a four-play game-winning drive, but in the end, that’s how it’ll go down in the record books for Sam Darnold and co.
Advertisement
Of course, that’s not to take away from the resurgence that he’s enjoyed in recent times. Ever since the beginning of his 2024 campaign with the Minnesota Vikings, the former third-overall draft pick has been one of the most unlikely candidates to find success.
According to Colin Cowherd, the Week 4 divisional win officially makes Darnold the ideal “example of ‘where you land matters.'” It’s no secret that the Southern California product had a rough start to his professional football career, but now that he’s on the other side of those struggles, it seems as if his former teams were more to blame than some may have realized.
“The Jets and Carolina, they asked him to carry the franchise. The last two stops? Good coaches, good roster, and suddenly he’s elite. Oh yeah, he’s elite. In the last two years, he’s tied for the most wins in the league by a quarterback. He’s tied for the most game-winning drives with Patrick Mahomes. And he leads the NFL in big plays.”
As Cowherd also noted, the Seahawks’ roster is one of the youngest in all of the NFL, suggesting that they may be able to go on a run before this thing is over with. Darnold’s playoff performance with the Vikings left a lot to be desired, but now that he’s got the likes of Kenneth Walker III and Jaxson Smith-Njigba on his side, he’s poised to get another try at things this year.
Seattle is now averaging almost 33 points per game throughout the past three weeks, and their defense is looking just as stout. They’ve held opponents to an average of 16.75 points per game since the start of the season, and their run defense is currently one of the best available, holding rushers to a mere average of 3.6 yards per attempt.
When it comes to passer ratings, yards gained per pass attempt, and passing success rates, Darnold is officially a top-10 quarterback. Believe it or not, those are things that you can’t say about the aforementioned Mahomes.
If you had told someone in 2021 that Darnold would be outproducing the star of the Kansas City Chiefs in four years time, you would have been met with laughter before being disregarded as a fool. Nevertheless, this is the reality in which we live, and according to Cowherd, it’s about time that we acknowledge that and begin to give the former New York Jet the credit that he so rightfully deserves.
