Week 4 in the NFL season is when we should start to believe what teams have shown us. Here’s what we’ve learned so far this week.
Sam Darnold came into this year as a bit of a curiosity.
The former third overall pick resurrected his career in Minnesota last year, but a dismal end to the season cast doubt on whether he was more than Kevin O’Connell’s latest magic trick.
The Seattle Seahawks believed in Darnold enough to both give him $55 million and move on from Geno Smith. With new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak and Darnold joining the team, general manager John Schneider believed he finally had the offensive pieces in place to complement Mike MacDonald’s rising defense.
The first week was ugly for the Seahawks, as Darnold threw for only 150 yards in a 17-14 loss to the San Francisco 49ers. But since then, the Seahawks have rattled off three straight wins, culminating in a 23-20 victory over the Arizona Cardinals on Thursday night.
In Week 3, Darnold simply had to manage the game in a 44-13 drubbing of the New Orleans Saints. It looked like Darnold might play the whole second half with the lead again in Week 4 when Seattle got out to a 14-3 halftime lead, but the Cardinals came back to tie the game at 20 with 28 seconds left.
In past years, it may have been easy for the Cardinals to force overtime with that amount of time remaining. But with the new kickoff rules, 28 seconds can be an eternity.
Chad Ryland sent his kick short of the landing zone, giving the Seahawks the ball at their own 40-yard line. Darnold needed just one big throw to get his team into field goal range, and he found Jaxon Smith-Njigba on the second play of the drive, hitting him with a back-shoulder throw for 22 yards. After Zach Charbonnet gained four yards on a rush, Jason Myers drilled a 52-yard field goal for the win.
Overall, it was Darnold’s best performance of the year. In a game when Smith-Njigba was held to a season low in targets (five) and catches (four), Darnold still averaged 9.3 yards per attempt, didn’t throw an interception and ripped an excellent pass down the field that set up the game-winning field goal.
There is still some skepticism about Darnold in big moments. The only way he’ll rid fans and analysts alike of that skepticism is by delivering when it matters most. Thursday night was a step in the right direction in that regard.
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