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Sam Darnold has a new home, reportedly agreeing to a three-year, $110.5 million deal with the Seattle Seahawks. The contract features $55 million guaranteed and is essentially a slight markup from the Baker Mayfield contract of last offseason when you look at the full details. That always seemed like the right place for Darnold to land on the open market after turning in an excellent season in a great environment but also showing enough warts to cause hesitation to make him a long-term franchise solution.
Let’s talk about that “great environment” note. The Seahawks right now present a significant downgrade in that regard compared to what Minnesota offered Darnold.
The Seahawks offensive line was a massive problem last season and the team needs to completely overhaul their guard, center, guard combo up front. The overall pass-catcher corps led by breakout star Jaxon Smith-Njigba is a significant question mark beyond their WR1 and there’s a 0.0% chance that they do anything this offseason to close the gap with the 2024 Vikings group. While Klint Kubiak has the goods as a play-caller overall, will boost the running game’s efficiency and offers system familiarity for Darnold, he’s not Kevin O’Connell.
The money is fine for Darnold and he was always justifiably going to walk away with a starting job this offseason based on his resume from last season. However, Seattle has a lot of work to do to boost what’s around him to ensure his limitations don’t come screaming back to the forefront on his fourth team.
Fantasy fallout
We can finally talk about Jaxon Smith-Njigba with a little more certainty. I overall like Darnold’s skill set to overlap with JSN’s game. The Seahawks wideout averaged 4.56 yards per route run vs. man coverage from Week 10 on last year and had long been a menace in the intermediate area. Darnold has the devil-may-care attitude and arm talent to absolutely rip in on those digs and outs to JSN, especially off the base play-action concepts in Kubiak’s offense.
I’d take Geno Smith over Darnold if I was looking to field a quarterback for 2025 but it’s closer to a lateral move for JSN in fantasy. Combine the Darnold pairing with the now enormous target vacuum left behind by the DK Metcalf trade and releasing Tyler Lockett, and I’m closer to calling the third-year wide receiver a winner in free agency than anything else. While the raw passing volume might dip in the offense with Kubiak replacing Ryan Grubb, I like this system to be more efficient through the air.
