Player
Sam Darnold
QB · SEA Seahawks
The two Minnesota games are the entire evidence base for a reputation, which is exactly how small a sample a quarterback narrative usually rests on. Three January games is also a small sample, so the fair conclusion is not that Darnold is clutch, only that nothing in the data separates his postseason play from his regular season play in either direction.
The fifth franchise
MYTH TEST: 'Darnold shrinks in January.' Two games built that story. Three games buried it.
The two Januarys
| Span | Games | Completions of attempts | Yards | Touchdowns to interceptions | Sacks taken |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 18 and the wild card round, Minnesota | 2 | 43 of 81 | 411 | 1 to 1 | 11 |
| The Seattle title run | 3 | 56 of 91 | 672 | 5 to 0 | 6 |
The story was earned. With the top seed on the line in week 18 of 2024 he went 18 of 41 for 166 yards, and the following week Los Angeles sacked him nine times in a wild card loss. Then Seattle. Three postseason games, five touchdowns, no interceptions, a 41-6 divisional round, a 31-27 conference final, and 29-13 in the Super Bowl. His expected points added per dropback in that run was +0.244, better than his own regular season +0.126. The perception was correct and is now out of date.
Why it matters. The two Minnesota games are the entire evidence base for a reputation, which is exactly how small a sample a quarterback narrative usually rests on. Three January games is also a small sample, so the fair conclusion is not that Darnold is clutch, only that nothing in the data separates his postseason play from his regular season play in either direction.
Seattle won a championship with the quarterback who threw the third-most interceptions in football.
AnomalyMost interceptions thrown, 2025 regular season (250+ attempts)
| Quarterback | Interceptions | Accuracy over expected |
|---|---|---|
| Geno Smith | 17 | +0.7% |
| Tua Tagovailoa | 15 | +2.0% |
| Sam Darnold | 14 | +5.2% |
| Justin Herbert | 13 | +1.6% |
| Trevor Lawrence | 12 | -1.9% |
Darnold was 4th in the NFL in accuracy over expected and 10th in expected points added per dropback, and he still put 14 balls in the wrong hands, including four in one afternoon against the Rams in week 11. Seattle went 19-21 that day and won the title anyway, because the other side of the ball took the ball back 18 times. The champion's quarterback was efficient and careless in the same season, which is a combination the box score rarely holds together.
Why it matters. Interceptions and accuracy measure different things: one is a throw-level skill, the other is a small number of catastrophic decisions, and a quarterback can be excellent at the first while remaining volatile at the second. For Seattle the practical consequence was that Darnold's variance had to be absorbed somewhere, and the defense absorbed it. Change that defense and the same passing profile reads very differently.
How he wins now
Nobody in football got more out of a deep ball. Darnold averaged 16.5 yards on every throw of 16 air yards or more.
RareYards per deep attempt, 2025 regular season (40+ deep attempts)
| Quarterback | Deep attempts | Completions | Yards per deep attempt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sam Darnold | 88 | 48 | 16.45 |
| Drake Maye | 111 | 65 | 15.49 |
| Brock Purdy | 46 | 26 | 14.85 |
| Dak Prescott | 108 | 51 | 14.23 |
| Jared Goff | 82 | 46 | 14.17 |
Deep throws are the highest paying pitch in football and the hardest to hit. Darnold hit 54.5% of his, fourth in the league, and turned them into 1,448 yards on 88 attempts. The per-throw return, 16.45 yards, was the best in the NFL. It is also the second straight year he has been near the top: he completed 52.6% deep in Minnesota in 2024 after never clearing 40% in a full season before that. The deep ball used to be the part of his game that lost games. It is now the part that wins them.
Why it matters. Deep accuracy is the single largest lever a quarterback has on scoring, because the expected points on a completed shot dwarf anything available underneath. Darnold's deep throws returned +0.74 expected points a play against +0.13 across his whole season, so roughly a fifth of his attempts carried most of his value. That is a real skill signature now, not a one-year hot streak, since it has held across two teams and two play callers.
Under center he averaged 10.8 yards a throw, the best mark in football. In the shotgun, 7.4.
SplitSam Darnold by formation, 2025 regular season
| Formation | Dropbacks | Average target depth | Yards per attempt | Expected points added per dropback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under center | 162 | 9.9 | 10.79 | +0.303 |
| Shotgun | 329 | 6.9 | 7.44 | +0.027 |
This is not a small gap. Under center Darnold was third in the NFL in expected points added per dropback among passers with 80 or more such snaps, behind only Jared Goff and Drake Maye, and first outright in yards per attempt at 10.79 with Goff next at 9.59. In the gun he was ordinary. Seattle noticed: the Seahawks used shotgun on 44.0% of their snaps, second lowest in the league behind the Rams. The offense was built around the throw Darnold is best at.
Why it matters. Under center passing forces the defense to respect a run fake and pushes the quarterback's eyes downfield, which is exactly the throw Darnold's arm rewards and exactly the throw his pre-Seattle offenses never asked for. The dependency runs both ways, though: this profile needs a play caller willing to live under center, which most of the league is not. Move him to a shotgun-first offense and the number that made him a champion is the first one to go.
He threw for 271 fewer yards than his Minnesota season and was better at nearly everything that decides games.
Comparison2024 Minnesota against 2025 Seattle, regular season
| Measure | 2024 MIN | 2025 SEA |
|---|---|---|
| Passing yards | 4,319 | 4,048 |
| Yards per attempt | 7.92 | 8.49 |
| Completion rate | 66.2% | 67.7% |
| Accuracy over expected | +3.9% | +5.2% |
| Sacks taken | 48 | 27 |
| Expected points added per dropback | +0.061 | +0.126 |
| Fantasy finish | QB9 | QB14 |
The counting stats went the wrong way and everything else went the right way. The headline is the protection: 48 sacks in Minnesota, 27 in Seattle, on almost the same number of dropbacks. That is a sack rate of 8.1% falling to 5.4%, the best of his career by nearly a point and a half. Fantasy managers only saw the top line, where 25 touchdowns replaced 35 and a QB9 finish became QB14.
Why it matters. The 21 vanished sacks are the whole story of the season. Sacks are drive killers worth roughly a full expected point each, and the version of Darnold that avoids them is the version that outscores his own volume. Where the credit sits matters for 2026: some belongs to Seattle's protection, but the persistence in this stat runs through the passer, so most of it moves with him.
The 12th round quarterback
MYTH TEST: 'A Super Bowl quarterback has to be a fantasy starter.' He was QB21 per game, and 8 of his 17 weeks were unusable.
Share of weeks under 12 PPR points, 2025 starting quarterbacks
| Group | Quarterbacks | Weeks under 12 points |
|---|---|---|
| Rushing 20+ yards a game | 11 | 18.6% |
| Rushing 10 to 20 yards a game | 8 | 30.2% |
| Rushing under 10 yards a game | 8 | 41.0% |
| Sam Darnold (5.6 rushing yards a game) | 1 | 47.1% |
Darnold finished QB14 on total points and QB21 on points per game, and he got there by never missing a Sunday, not by scoring. He rushed for 95 yards and zero touchdowns all season, the only year of his career without a rushing score. Eight of his seventeen weeks came in under 12 PPR points, a 47.1% dud rate against 18.6% for the quarterbacks who run. The championship and the fantasy season are two separate facts and only one of them helps your lineup.
Why it matters. Quarterback scoring is bimodal because rushing yardage is nearly free points that arrive every week, while passing points arrive in touchdown-shaped lumps that either land or do not. A passer with no legs has to throw multiple scores to reach a startable week. In the nine weeks Darnold threw fewer than two, he averaged 7.6 PPR points. That is why a genuinely good NFL season translated into a genuinely replaceable fantasy one.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: the call is another finish in the QB13 to QB22 band. Roughly one in four quarterbacks in his exact spot climb into the top 12.
Sam Darnold's 2025 qualifying profile
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Points per game | 13.85 |
| Finish on points per game | QB21 |
| Games played | 17 |
| Rushing yards per game | 5.6 |
| Rushing touchdowns | 0 |
What happened to the 51 matching quarterback seasons since 2010
| The following season | Quarterbacks | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Finished top 12 | 14 | 27.5% |
| Finished top 18 | 27 | 52.9% |
| Finished outside the top 18 | 24 | 47.1% |
| Average finish | QB17.2 | whole group |
The cohort is every quarterback season since 2010 that played 14 or more games, finished 16th to 26th in points per game, and rushed for under 10 yards a game, matched to that same passer's next season. Fifty-one seasons qualify. The band is wide at both ends: Matthew Stafford was QB26 in 2024 and QB3 in 2025, while Gardner Minshew went from QB22 to QB31. The gradeable call for 2026: Darnold finishes between QB13 and QB22 on points per game and does not crack the top 12.
Why it matters. Two things pin this forecast. The efficiency is real and should hold, because accuracy over expected is one of the stickiest quarterback measures and Darnold has now posted a strong one in back-to-back seasons on different teams. The scoring ceiling is also real and will not move, because he does not run, and the gap between QB12 and QB20 in a normal season is almost entirely rushing production. Good football, ordinary fantasy.
Forty-four percent of every yard Seattle threw for went to one man. Darnold's ceiling is bolted to Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
ComparisonSmith-Njigba's output by the kind of week Darnold had, 2025 regular season
| Darnold's week | Weeks | Smith-Njigba PPR points | Smith-Njigba receiving yards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 or more PPR points | 4 | 26.9 | 128.8 |
| 12 to 20 PPR points | 5 | 22.5 | 108.2 |
| Under 12 PPR points | 8 | 17.5 | 92.1 |
Smith-Njigba took 36.8% of Seattle's targets and 44.1% of its receiving yards, both the largest shares in the NFL, and the second number leads the league by more than seven points. When Darnold cleared 20 fantasy points, his receiver averaged 128.8 yards and hit 15-plus PPR points in every one of those weeks. When Darnold was unusable, the receiver still averaged 92.1. The dependency is real and it runs mostly one way.
Why it matters. This is the practical shape of Seattle's passing attack: one target absorbs so much of the volume that the quarterback's ceiling and the receiver's floor are the same number viewed from two sides. For a fantasy manager it means stacking the two is close to redundant rather than additive, and it means any absence for Smith-Njigba removes Darnold's path to a startable week entirely.
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