How Sam Darnold’s NFL Nightmare Turned Him Into an Unstoppable MVP Contender

Sam Darnold’s comeback story has been nothing short of captivating. After what felt like an eternity of question marks and raised eyebrows following his earlier NFL struggles, he’s finally silenced the doubters once and for all. The 2024 season with the Minnesota Vikings was no mere flash in the pan — it was a bold statement. But as anyone who follows this game closely knows, the real test isn’t about a single year of success. It’s about proving that the stumble at season’s end was just a hiccup, not a relapse.

Now, as Seattle stakes its claim atop a fiercely competitive NFC at 7-2, with stars emerging from every corner of its roster, Darnold is at the epicenter of this charge. With numbers that put him in elite company — from a whopping 71.1% completion rate to ranking first in average completed air yards — he’s rewriting the script for what a quarterback can be, especially one who’s bounced around as much as he has. And let’s not forget the newfound support system around him: a league-leading receiver in Jaxon Smith-Njigba and a savvy offensive mind in Klint Kubiak helping to keep the man upright and firing.

But here’s where it gets really interesting — the season is heating up, and all eyes will be on Darnold come postseason time, where pressure crushes many but can also reveal true grit. With the Seahawks primed for a challenging slate ahead, featuring battles against his former squads and the tough Rams, this isn’t just about wins and losses. It’s about legacy, redemption, and the relentless pursuit to prove that past ghosts have been exorcised for good.

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Sam Darnold isn’t seeing ghosts, not anymore. A season after his remarkable career resurrection, Darnold has proven to even the most skeptical eyes that his landmark 2024 season with the Minnesota Vikings wasn’t a one-off fluke. Now comes the real challenge: Proving that the ugly way his 2024 ended was.

Through 10 weeks, Seattle stands atop the NFC, alongside Philadelphia and the Rams, at 7-2. The Seahawks have lost their two games by a total of seven points, and they’re minting stars, from league-leading wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba to offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak.

At the heart of it all is Darnold, who continues to defy the law of NFL career gravity. Quarterbacks on their fourth team in four years aren’t supposed to be starting, much less growing and improving. Yet here’s Darnold, standing among the best in the game with 2,262 passing yards and 17 touchdowns on the season. His 71.1 completion percentage ranks behind only Jared Goff and Drake Maye, and his passer rating of 116.5 ranks second among qualified quarterbacks only to Goff.

Slice deeper and the stats still break in Darnold’s favor. The NFL’s Next Gen Stats rank Darnold first among all quarterbacks in average completed air yards per pass at 8.7, and his completion percentage above expectation — i.e. how much better he’s throwing than you’d expect — also ranks first, tied with Maye, at 9.3 percent.

Plus, the former Jet and third overall pick in 2018 is getting better help than he’s seen most of his career. Smith-Njigba is a revelation, leading the NFL in receiving yardage. And Kubiak has schemed up an offense that takes advantage of Darnold’s strengths while keeping him standing upright — Darnold has suffered a league-low 10 sacks this year.

BetMGM pegs Darnold’s MVP odds at +1000, sixth behind Matthew Stafford, Maye, Patrick Mahomes, Jonathan Taylor and Josh Allen. Seattle fans will surely grumble that that’s anti-Northwest bias at work, but Seattle fans can also take heart in the fact that Darnold is outshining the guy he replaced — Geno Smith, who’s beyond struggling in Las Vegas right now.

“Believe me when I say, I’m not surprised,” Seattle head coach Mike Macdonald said after Darnold’s stellar four-TD performance two weeks ago against Washington. “We watched Sam every day on how he operates, and he’s the same guy every day, which is what you love about him.”

Thing is, all these regular-season accolades will keep Seattle fans happy through the end of the year. But the real test comes when the calendar flips to 2026 and the postseason pressure ratchets upward. Darnold has played exactly one postseason game in his career — remember, he’s spent most of his career with teams like the Jets and Panthers — and it came earlier this very year.

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold (14) celebrates while running off of the field after an NFL football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack) — Sam Darnold has the Seahawks at 7-2, tied for the best record in the NFC. (AP)

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After a remarkable 2024 regular season, in which Darnold seemed to put the “ghosts” meme from his Jets days behind him, all the old demons came roaring back in the final game of the regular season. Needing a win against division rival Detroit to give the Vikings a 15-2 regular season record and a first-round bye, Darnold flopped harder than he had all season, throwing for just 166 yards as the Vikings could manage only three field goals in a humiliating 31-9 stomping. One week later, he and Minnesota sputtered in the first round of the playoffs, falling 27-9 to the Rams.

The Vikings, believing Darnold was a one-year story and J.J. McCarthy was the future, gave Darnold a “best wishes in your future endeavors” nudge out the door. Darnold, who made the NFL offseason Top 100 list for the first time in his career at No. 72, signed with Seattle on a three-year, $100 million deal to replace Smith. And nobody’s regretting anything yet, well, except maybe the Vikings.

The Seahawks’ season levels up in difficulty starting this weekend with a marquee late-window matchup against fellow NFC West Los Angeles. Like Seattle, the Rams are riding a resurgent quarterback to a four-game winning streak. Both teams rank in the top 5 in both scoring offense and scoring defense, the only two teams in the league ranked so highly in both categories. The Rams are 3-point home favorites, but Seattle is on an 11-game road win streak that dates all the way back to September 2024.

Darnold’s not responsible for all of that, but he does have history with the Rams — that ignominious playoff game from earlier this year. This week, he tried to downplay any sense of significance to that history: “For us it’s just about going down there,” he said. “For myself, personally, it’s about going down there and taking care of business. It’s as simple as that.”

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Darnold has struggled with ball security over the last couple weeks — two fumbles, two interceptions — and indicated he’s trying to reset and prevent a small problem from becoming a big one. “Being very deliberate with my progressions, going through my reads, understanding when the pocket’s a little bit messy and when I need to maybe check the ball down or even just throw it away,” he said. “That’s going to be a huge point of emphasis this week. But again, I like to play every single play as its own and kind of go from there.”

It’s a good mantra for a game, and for a career.

Part of being a well-traveled quarterback — which is a kinder euphemism than “journeyman” — is that you have plenty of opportunities for “revenge games” against former teams. Three of the Seahawks’ final eight games come against Darnold’s exes — the Vikings in two weeks, then the Panthers and 49ers to close out the season. Darnold will surely downplay the significance of all of those games, but if he’s in a position to win them, that’ll be a sweet validation of his renaissance.

And then the real work begins.