As attention shifts to Sam Darnold, prepare for endless stories about his 2019 "seeing ghosts" comment, when he played for the Jets and struggled against the Patriots' defense. Even after the Seahawks QB won the NFC title game Sunday night, he was still asked about it.
"I almost forgot about it, so thanks,” he joked.
That was questionable form by whoever went there right away, even though Darnold handled it like a pro, going on to say, in part, “I think, for me, there was a lot that I didn’t know back then...”
He sure knows more now, and is (mostly) playing like it. Darnold’s history, and the Seahawks in general, will now become our local obsession as they are the last opponent standing between this Patriots team and a Super Bowl title.
It’s a remarkable story, and the preseason odds hammer that point home. This matchup was 4,800-to-1 at the start of the year, making it the most unlikely Super Bowl matchup since 1989 (h/t Mike Sando). I did the math. We all could have had one hell of a vacation if we had just put down $10. Maybe next year.
As for this year, as of the writing of this column, the Patriots are anywhere from 4 to 5.5 point underdogs to the Seahawks. I would bet Mike Vrabel already is framing one of his “edges” around his team not getting enough respect. They’ve played it up for weeks (as Bedard noted in his postgame column from Sunday). Why not lean into the greatest hits one more time?
Seattle’s built around its defense. Mike Macdonald replaced a legend, Pete Carroll, and brought with him a Ravens-style unit that wants to attack an offense rather than let the offense dictate the terms and tempo. The transformation has been quick, and there’s no arguing with its success. The Seahawks defense is #1 in both DVOA and weighted DVOA (which gives more credence to recent games and less to those earlier in the year). They are also #1 in DVOA against both the pass and run, in case you were wondering if one aspect was better than another. Nope. They’ll be equally as imposing.
Seattle also excels at taking the ball away (6th-most turnovers caused with 25) and has 47 sacks, which rank 7th. The pass rush is built around the collective. They were the only team to have 5 players with 40+ pressures in 2025 (per NGS): DeMarcus Lawrence (51), Byron Murphy II (46), Leonard Williams (45), Uchenna Nwosu (44), and Boye Mafe (41).
That will put a lot of heat on Drake Maye and the Pats’ offense, which has been more passenger than driver in this postseason. The Pats have scored just 54 points in their three wins. That’s the fewest points scored prior to a Super Bowl by a team that played in the Wild Card, Divisional, and Championship rounds (breaking the record of the 2000 Ravens).
But the level of competition has been fierce, so why not save arguably the biggest challenge for the finale? Maye can become the 2nd QB in NFL history to defeat the 1st (Seattle), 2nd (Houston), and 3rd-ranked (Denver) scoring defenses in a single postseason, and the Chargers were no slouch either (in fact, I’d argue they were playing better than the Broncos at the time of their meetings).
The Pats have proven they can run the ball effectively against these teams, and that will be important again on Super Bowl Sunday. It wouldn’t be nice, however, to get Maye cooking again. He’s been sped up in this postseason and has been considerably more scattershot with his accuracy than he was throughout the regular season. It’s not all on him. Left tackle Will Campbell struggled again on Sunday in pass pro, and even before the weather turned, the pass catchers weren’t throwing a scare into the Broncos DBs. Seattle doesn’t have a Patrick Surtain, so maybe that makes for easier sledding.
As for the Seahawks offense, so much of it rides on Darnold. On Sunday night, he may have delivered his best game in his biggest game (to date). Despite barely practicing because of an oblique injury suffered before the Divisional round romp over the 49ers, the well-traveled former first-round pick spun it like the big-armed talent he is. Darnold went 25-of-36 for 346 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INT, and had a 127.8 passer rating vs. the Rams. That’s the 4th-highest passer rating ever by a QB to attempt at least 30 passes in a Conference Championship. Not too bad for a player who was nearly ruined by the Jets, then bounced around from Carolina to San Francisco to Minnesota, where he won 14 games last year before flaming out in the playoffs, to now, Seattle.
“Everyone wants to make a narrative about this guy, but he’s been the same guy since he walked in the door,” Macdonald said. “You don’t want me writing the stories because I would not write the narratives out there. This guy is the man, and his teammates love him, and he’s competitive as crap, and he’s tough. He’s really talented, and he’s a winner. That would be the story. So don’t let me write the story.”
“For him to overcome (what he) had to overcome, I’m rolling with Sam all day,” Jaxson Smith-Njigba said. “We believe in him. This building believes in him. This city believes in him. It’s awesome to run out on the field with him.”
Darnold has benefited from Smith-Njigba’s star turn (he had over 1,800 yards receiving this year), the trade deadline acquisition of fleet-footed wideout Rashid Shaheed, a resurgent Cooper Kupp (at least last night), and a run game powered by Kenneth Walker (backup Zach Charbonnet tore his ACL in the Divisional round).
They aren’t perfect - 13 points in the regular-season finale against SF, 18 vs. the Colts in mid-December - but they did score 20 or more in 13 of their 17 regular-season games and have put up big numbers in their two playoff games (41 and 31). My gut feeling after the Patriots’ win was a preference for the Seahawks because of that offense. What’s happened in the playoffs doesn’t change that for me, largely because of how this Vrabel/Zak Kukr-led defense is performing. They’ve become a blitz happy riddle that no team has solved since Buffalo pre-Christmas. Ask Jarrett Stidham.
He went 5-for-13 for 28 yards against the blitz on Sunday. That’s -0.93 EPA, which is rotten. The week before, CJ Stroud completed just 6 of 20 throws for 67 yards vs. the blitz (-0.63 EPA). Justin Herbert had a bad time in the Wild Card round, going 7-of-16 for 69 yards with 3 sacks (-0.54 EPA). See a trend? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and hope that Darnold hasn’t seen what you’re bringing, or who you’re bringing it with (He was 7-of-9 for 86 and two sacks vs. the Rams blitz, a +0.28 EPA).
Anyway, that’s some early thoughts/insights into this Super Bowl matchup, a rematch of the 2014 gem of a title tilt that still remains the single best football game I’ve ever covered. “Malcolm, go.”
4 Years Ago Today. #MalcolmGO #STILLHERE pic.twitter.com/Xm5kzD4vMa
— Sant (@santino_dal) February 1, 2019