RENTON, Wash. — At this point of the year, after all the offseason workouts, OTAs, training camp and more than two months of the regular season, Sam Darnold knows he has the support of the Seahawks locker room.
That being said, it’s still nice to hear the support every once in a while. And when it’s an emphatic statement like the one linebacker Ernest Jones IV made after the Seahawks lost to the Rams last Sunday in support of his quarterback, it’s even more meaningful.
“When things you know don’t necessarily go the way that I want them to, especially on game day, the reason that it sucks for me is because I feel like I’m letting those guys down. And I feel like a lot of the guys in the locker room feel the same way,” Darnold said Thursday. “That energy and those things that he said meant a lot to me, for a guy to have my back like that.”
In case you missed it, Jones had some emphatic words — punctuated with an expletive — after Darnold suffered through a four-interception nightmare in last Sunday’s 21-19 loss to the Rams.
The gist of what Jones suggested was if you’re behind the Seahawks, you need to be behind Darnold. And if you believe otherwise or want to take shots at the quarterback, well, Jones had some choice words for you.
“It’s football, man. He’s our quarterback. We got his back. And if you got anything to say, quite frankly, [expletive] you,” Jones said Sunday.
Darnold, who threw for 279 yards and nearly pulled off a late comeback after a mostly miserable day, believes that kind of support is the sign of the dynamic in the locker room.
“It’s not every locker room that’s like that,” Darnold said. “I’ve been around some really good locker rooms and some locker rooms that aren’t necessarily as close. But I would say this locker room is at the top for sure. Just the way that everyone comes together, and the way that they fight for each other. I think it’s very evident with the way that we play football on Sundays.”
What had been a pretty magical first nine games with Darnold as the Seahawks’ starter hit a speed bump with the performance against the Rams. It was the third game in his career with four interceptions and a second time in the past calendar year struggling badly against the Rams.
Darnold complimented the Rams for the way they were able to disguise coverages while at the same time criticizing himself for not following his route progressions.
“I think just having a better understanding when the ball is snapped what the coverage is and when a guy’s going to come open and when he’s not,” Darnold said. “When I say getting stuck on a progression, I mean, just seeing one side of the field and feeling like there’s a chance that someone’s going to get open over there rather than just moving on and clicking through my progression as I normally do.”
Darnold said he’s tried to learn through the years to quickly move on from mistakes and not let them linger, although it’d been a long time since he had a game with that many turnovers. The last time Darnold threw four picks in a game was 2019 when he was still the quarterback of the Jets.
“I just have to have a mentality of moving on to the next play because there’s nothing that I can do once I throw an interception or fumble,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do at that point to change that so it’s about moving on as fast as I can, understanding why I messed up, looking back at it, and understanding, OK, this is why this happened and just being able to move on.”
The four interceptions by Darnold brought the Seahawks’ turnover total to 12 over the past four games. Not all turnovers are equal — the three turnovers committed against Arizona were countered by two defensive touchdowns by DeMarcus Lawrence in a game that was over by halftime.
But it’s a general trend that Darnold and offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak agreed isn’t sustainable as a winning formula and must change.
“Bad play selection, bad execution. Just things you can’t do and win,” Kubiak said. “Our defense has been playing great and a game like the last one where you have four turnovers, it’s normally not that close, but our guys did a great job of fighting back all the way to the end to give us a chance to win. I also think when bad stuff happens things can go one of two ways and I thought our guys really responded well. So I was very pleased with that.”