Ethical Sports Takes

There comes a point where you have to admit you were wrong, and when it comes to Sam Darnold, I was wrong.

I had basically given up on him. Most NFL fans had. He had gone from one of the most exciting quarterback prospects in college football to another highly drafted quarterback who seemingly wasn’t going to make it in the NFL.

But there was one man who seemingly refused to get off the island: Colin Cowherd.

For years, Cowherd continued to argue that the talent we saw from Darnold at USC hadn’t simply disappeared. He took plenty of criticism for continuing to believe in him, and after what Darnold has accomplished over the past two seasons, it’s only fair to say it: Colin deserves some credit.

Because maybe Sam Darnold wasn’t broken. Maybe he just needed the right environment.

The USC Star

Before all the jokes, criticism and labels that followed Darnold around the NFL, there was a reason he became the third overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.

Darnold was incredible at USC. He became the Trojans’ starter during the 2016 season and immediately transformed the team, finishing his first year with 3,086 passing yards, 31 touchdowns and only nine interceptions while completing 67.2% of his passes.

Then came the 2017 Rose Bowl against Penn State. Darnold threw for 453 yards and five touchdowns as USC won an unforgettable 52–49 shootout. He set the Rose Bowl record for total offense with 473 yards and tied the game’s record with five total touchdowns.

The following season, Darnold threw for a USC-record 4,143 yards, led the Trojans to their first Pac-12 championship since 2008 and earned First-Team All-Pac-12 honors. Across his two seasons as USC’s starter, Darnold went 20–4, throwing for 7,229 yards and 57 touchdowns.

He looked like a franchise quarterback.

Then the New York Jets drafted him.

The Jets Years

The Jets selected Darnold third overall in 2018, even trading three second-round selections to move up and put themselves in position to take him.

And, surprise, the New York Jets almost broke another quarterback.

Darnold showed flashes of the talent that had made him such a highly regarded prospect, but there was never enough consistency around him. Coaches changed, offensive systems changed, the roster wasn’t good enough, and eventually the mistakes started defining him more than the talent.

By the end of three seasons in New York, the Jets were ready to move on. Darnold was traded to the Carolina Panthers in 2021, where he got another opportunity to prove he could become a franchise quarterback. There were flashes again, but nothing that convinced the NFL that the former third overall pick was finally going to fulfill his potential.

Eventually, Carolina moved on too. At that point, the verdict around the league seemed pretty clear: Sam Darnold was a bust.

San Francisco Changed Everything

Then Darnold made what might have been the most important decision of his NFL career: he went to San Francisco.

Darnold signed a one-year contract with the 49ers in 2023 and spent the season behind Brock Purdy, working inside Kyle Shanahan’s offense. He wasn’t playing much, but he was learning.

For the first time in his NFL career, Darnold was inside one of football’s most stable and quarterback-friendly offensive environments. He could watch how Shanahan structured an offense, how Purdy processed the game and how a successful organization developed quarterbacks without carrying the pressure of having to save a franchise every Sunday.

We couldn’t fully see it yet, but Darnold’s career outlook was changing.

Then Minnesota called.

The Opportunity in Minnesota

The Minnesota Vikings signed Darnold to a one-year, $10 million contract in 2024 after Kirk Cousins left for Atlanta. Minnesota then drafted J.J. McCarthy with the 10th overall pick, making it pretty obvious who the organization viewed as its quarterback of the future.

Darnold was the veteran option. McCarthy was the long-term future. Then McCarthy suffered a season-ending knee injury during the preseason, and suddenly this was Darnold’s team.

He took advantage of it.

Darnold completed 66.2% of his passes for 4,319 yards, 35 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, posting a 102.5 passer rating while leading Minnesota to a 14–3 record.

Fourteen wins for Sam Darnold — the same quarterback much of the NFL had already written off.

Justin Jefferson didn’t exactly suffer either. With Darnold throwing him the football, Jefferson finished the season with 103 receptions, 1,533 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Unfortunately, the season ended badly. Minnesota lost its opportunity at the NFC’s No. 1 seed against Detroit and then fell to the Rams in the Wild Card round. Immediately, the old narrative returned: See? Darnold can’t handle the big games.

Minnesota ultimately decided to move forward without him.

In my opinion, that was a mistake.

Seattle Had Seen Enough

The Seattle Seahawks didn’t care about the old narrative. They had seen enough.

Seattle handed Darnold a three-year, $100.5 million contract and made him its quarterback. Once again, plenty of people questioned whether the previous season had been real. Maybe it was Kevin O’Connell. Maybe it was Justin Jefferson. Maybe Darnold would turn back into the Jets version of himself without Minnesota’s infrastructure.

Instead, he proved everybody wrong again.

Darnold threw for 4,048 yards and 25 touchdowns, completed a career-high 67.7% of his passes and helped lead Seattle all the way to the Super Bowl.

But there was still one criticism following him: big games. When the pressure gets high, Darnold freezes. When the lights get brighter, he’ll eventually become the old Sam Darnold again.

Then came the NFC Championship Game.

Go Look at the NFC Championship Game

Seattle’s season came down to one game against the Los Angeles Rams with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. If Darnold really couldn’t perform when the pressure was at its highest, this was where it should have happened.

Instead, he produced perhaps the greatest game of his NFL career: 25 completions on 36 attempts, 346 passing yards, three touchdowns, zero interceptions and a 127.8 passer rating. All three touchdown passes came against pressure, making him the first quarterback in the Next Gen Stats era to throw three touchdowns against pressure in a playoff game.

With the NFC Championship on the line, Sam Darnold delivered. Seattle won 31–27, and the quarterback who had been labeled a bust, traded away, bounced around the league and eventually became a backup was going to the Super Bowl.

What happened to the idea that he couldn’t perform under pressure?

And Darnold wasn’t finished. Seattle went on to defeat New England 29–13 in Super Bowl LX, making Darnold only the fourth quarterback ever to win the Super Bowl in his first season with a team.

And Look What Happened to JSN

Darnold’s season becomes even more impressive when you look at what happened around him.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba exploded, catching 119 passes for 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns, easily producing the best season of his young career. He became a First-Team All-Pro and was named the NFL Offensive Player of the Year.

That doesn’t happen solely because of the quarterback. JSN deserves enormous credit for becoming one of football’s elite receivers. But quarterbacks and receivers elevate each other.

Darnold spent 2024 helping Justin Jefferson produce another 1,500-yard season and then went to Seattle and helped JSN explode for nearly 1,800 yards.

At some point, maybe we should stop treating everything good that happens around Sam Darnold as something somebody else created.

We’re Finally Seeing the USC Quarterback

That’s what makes this entire story so satisfying. The talent was always there.

We saw it at USC. We saw the arm talent, the playmaking and the quarterback who could take over games and looked worthy of being selected near the very top of an NFL Draft.

Then the NFL happened.

Darnold landed in a bad situation, struggled, bounced around the league and became another cautionary tale about highly drafted quarterbacks. But his story wasn’t finished.

San Francisco gave him an opportunity to learn inside a great offensive system. Minnesota gave him another opportunity to start. Seattle finally gave him something he hadn’t had in years: belief.

And Darnold rewarded them.

Over the past two seasons, he has gone from an NFL reclamation project to a two-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl champion. His 2025 postseason run ended with five touchdowns, zero interceptions and a 102.4 passer rating across three victories.

So yes, I’m giving Sam Darnold his flowers. And if you were one of the people who never stopped believing in him — Colin, you can take your victory lap too.

Because after years of waiting, we’re finally seeing the quarterback everyone thought Sam Darnold could become when he left USC. Every time people move the goalposts, he keeps proving them wrong.

Maybe it’s time we stop waiting for Sam Darnold to fail and start appreciating how incredible his career turnaround has been.

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