The date is September 10th, 2018. Sam Darnold is taking on the Detroit Lions his first NFL game for the New York Jets after they traded up to third overall to select him.
Jets fans all over the world watch on as his first NFL pass attempt is picked and returned for a touchdown by Quandre Diggs.
Things couldn’t have started worse for Darnold, but he turned things around and delivered a 48-17 win.
Unfortunately for all involved, he only went on to pick up another 12 wins across his three years with the team, but this first game was symbolic of what was to come in one of the NFL’s most inspirational career revivals.
Coming out of college, Darnold was seen as a largely prototypical prospect. Ball security issues were the only concern for scouts, and he looked poised to finally be the answer to the Jets quarterback woes.
Just like Geno Smith, Mark Sanchez, more before him, and Zach Wilson since, it didn’t work.
Darnold was regarded as a huge bust, but with the tutelage of Todd Bowles and Adam Gase as his head coaches, is it really a surprise he didn’t pan out?
His next stop was Charlotte to join up with Matt Rhule and the Carolina Panthers. A change of scenery, yes, but hardly an upgrade.
Darnold went 8-9 as a starter in his two years there, sharing the QB room with the likes of Cam Newton and Baker Mayfield. Just five years deep, he looked destined for a journeyman role.
Santa Clara came next, and Darnold found himself as the backup to Brock Purdy on the 49ers’ 2023 Super Bowl run. A loss in the big game is disappointing of course, but Darnold described his year as a “valuable learning experience”.
Working with the likes of Kyle Shanahan and experiencing a winning culture for the first time marked the start of a turnaround that no one saw coming.
A one-year, $10 million deal with the Vikings was viewed as nothing more than a stopgap while their shiny new toy J.J. McCarthy developed his skills on the bench.
A competition for the starting job would have ensued if it weren’t for a season-ending injury to McCarthy in the preseason.
In a way, Darnold’s tenure was a stopgap of sorts, but not in the way anyone expected.
A 5-0 start put the league on notice. An 11 touchdown barrage saw him take the NFC Offensive Player of the Month title, but there were still years of doubt to shake off.
To everyone’s surprise, the wins just kept on coming. 14 of them to be exact.
4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns, 102.5 passer rating, Pro Bowl. Not a bad year for a ‘bust’.
But it still wasn’t enough. The chatter shifted from a bust to a one-year wonder, with no one believing he could replicate it.
In their defense, he didn’t replicate it. He went one better.
A three-year, $100.5 million deal with the Seahawks was penned ahead of the 2025 season to the tune of plenty of criticism. A 3-2 start to the season was promising, but no one could have predicted what would happen next.
The Seahawks reeled off a slew of 10 wins in their final 11 games, driven by stellar performances from Darnold such as his week 9 first-half showing of four touchdowns and no incompletions, the first player to do so since Ryan Tannehill in 2015.
All of a sudden, the Seahawks were looking like the scariest team in the league, and any negative discourse surrounding Darnold was dwindling.
He became just the second QB ever after Tom Brady to lead a team to back-to-back 14 win seasons and the first to do so with two different teams
Entering the postseason as the number-one seed, the divisional round was dealt with swiftly as a 41-6 rout blew away their division rival 49ers.
A stunning 31-27 victory over the MVP Matt Stafford and the Rams yielded 346 yards and three TDs for Darnold en route to Super Bowl LX.
And finally, on February 8th, 2026, the journey was complete.
The man who just a few years prior looked destined for life as a backup had achieved the impossible. A dominant 29-13 win saw him become the first QB from a draft class that included Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson to win a Super Bowl as a starter.
Just like the Lions game eight years ago, a rocky start ended in victory, and Sam Darnold etched his name into the history books as a Seattle Seahawks legend in a comeback that will be remembered for years to come.
