RENTON — At 9:27 a.m. Tuesday, news broke that the New York Giants were benching Russell Wilson, a move that puts the future of the man who serves as the benchmark of Seattle Seahawks quarterbacks in more doubt than ever.
Seventeen minutes later, the Seahawks’ account on X posted a picture of Sam Darnold and his stats from the 44-13 win over New Orleans on Sunday emblazoned with the words “That’s our QB.”
The timing may have been a coincidence — NFL accounts often send out messages lauding their players during the week.
But it was hard to ignore.
As Wilson’s career teeters on the brink at the age of 36, the Seahawks appear to have found, in the 28-year-old Darnold, a player who could be their quarterback for years to come — potentially giving the Seahawks the kind of long-term stability at the game’s most important position they haven’t had since Wilson’s prime.
Darnold has the highest grade of any quarterback through three weeks of the NFL season from the influential analytics site Pro Football Focus at 91.9.
He’s earned that by completing 70.3% of his passes and not just by throwing a lot of checkdowns. His average of nine yards per pass is third-highest of any QB in the NFL who has played more than one game and illustrates how well he has executed an offense built on finding ways to create openings for big plays in the passing game.
Darnold has thrown four touchdown passes the past two weeks while leading an offense that has scored the fifth-most points in the NFL with 88 (true, two are special teams touchdowns, but the points remain). He’s had just three sacks.
He had a perfect passer rating of 158.3 in the first half of Sunday’s 44-13 win over the Saints, completing 10 of 11 passes for 169 yards and two TDs and is one of three QBs nominated by the NFL for the league’s FedEx Air Player of the Week honors.
“He’s being efficient, decisive, accurate, tough, extending plays when he needs to, being aggressive when he needs to, taking care of the ball when he needs to,” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said Monday. “So let’s keep it rolling.”
He’s on his way to answering the question that was most asked when he signed with the Seahawks in March on a three-year deal worth up to $100.5 million — which version of Darnold were they getting?
Were they getting the Darnold who the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers gave up on and spent a season in purgatory as a backup with the San Francisco 49ers, or were they getting the Darnold who revived his career in Minnesota in 2024 with a 35 to 12 touchdown-to-interception ratio in leading the Vikings to a 14-3 record?
The Seahawks appear to be getting the latter. Darnold has not only produced on the field but proven to be a good fit in the locker room and a calm leader for an offense that no longer consists of any players who were on the team when Wilson played his final season in Seattle in 2021. Aside from veteran receiver Cooper Kupp, the offense doesn’t include anyone in the starting lineup who has been in the NFL for longer than four seasons.
“He’s steady, man,” Kupp said, recalling when Darnold threw two interceptions in the first half against the Steelers before leading a rally in the second half for an eventual 31-17 win. “… There’s no flinch from him. Whether it was highs when we were rolling (or) when we were trying to find some momentum, it’s the same guy.
“I think that’s a comforting thing for guys in the huddle, knowing that the guy that’s leading the charge here, he’s not going to flinch. He’s going to stand in there and make throws and be the same guy that he was, regardless of what that result is.”
It’s fair to say steady is what general manager John Schneider and Macdonald wanted out of a quarterback as they moved on from the Geno Smith era.
While Smith’s three-year tenure as Wilson’s successor was more successful than most anticipated, there was always a question of how set the Seahawks really were at quarterback heading into the future.
That came to a head in March when the Seahawks realized Smith was not likely to sign an extension, while also learning Darnold would be available. That led to the trade of Smith on a Friday afternoon and signing of Darnold the following Monday.
For maybe the first time since the trade of Wilson in March of 2022, the Seahawks appear stable at QB for not only the present but potentially for years to come.
It’s long been clear that the Seahawks got the better of the Wilson trade in dealing him to Denver while acquiring what turned into six draft picks and three players.
Four of those draft picks turned into players who will be starters or play key roles Thursday night in Arizona — left tackle Charles Cross (currently rated fifth of 70 tackles in the NFL by PFF), cornerback Devon Witherspoon (assuming he returns from a knee injury) and rush ends Derick Hall and Boye Mafe. The latter three are cornerstone pieces of a defense that is the first Seahawks team to allow 17 points or fewer in each of the first three games of the season since 2013. That’s the year Wilson lead the franchise to its only Super Bowl win.
What also seems increasingly clear is that the Seahawks traded Wilson at the right time.
Wilson, who turns 37 in November, has gone 17-27 as a starter since the trade after going 104-53-1 with the Seahawks.
The flameout in Denver could be excused as a poor fit. But the struggles with Pittsburgh last season and now the Giants seem the mark of a player who has hit a rapid decline, one the Seahawks knew would eventually come, if not as soon as it did.
How much the Seahawks thought Wilson had left would unquestionably have played a big role in contract talks they would have had following the 2022 season.
Those talks never materialized, and likely would never have gone anywhere given the fraying relationship between the two sides that led to the trade.
The Seahawks would never have given Wilson the deal he got from Denver — a five-year contract worth up to $245 million. The Broncos ended up paying Wilson $122.79 million for going 11-19 in his two seasons.
Less than an hour after news of Wilson’s benching in New York surfaced Tuesday, Darnold took to the stage at the VMAC to conduct his weekly news conference with Seattle media.
“They are tough to prepare for,” Darnold said in his opening statement of the Cardinals. He has made it a routine to begin his media sessions with a brief overview of the week ahead.
“But we are excited for the challenge on a short week.’’
Wilson, meanwhile, can only wait and wonder if he will ever stand behind a podium as a team’s starting quarterback and team leader and speak such words.