RENTON, Wash. – The raw numbers – just 150 passing yards and 230 yards total offense in a 17-13 loss to the San Francisco 49ers – said one thing about Sam Darnold’s Seahawks debut Sunday.
The eye test of the coaches and the analytics said another.
“I was impressed with Sam,” offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak said Thursday. “I thought he did, with the opportunities that we gave him, a great job. The offensive line protecting him really well. Sam’s going to keep getting better as we go along, and I can’t say enough about him at the end of the game. We made some big plays when the game was at the most important time.”
That the Seahawks lost despite a late rally that got Seattle to the 9-yard-line in the final minute means, of course, the game can hardly be considered an unqualified successful opener for Darnold.
But once the emotions of the loss and disappointment at the way the game ended had cleared, the consensus quickly formed that Darnold was hardly the root of Seattle’s offensive problems.
Pro Football Focus, for instance, slotted Darnold fourth in its weekly rating of quarterbacks after the first game behind only Matthew Stafford, Justin Fields and Dak Prescott with a passing grade of 82.6.
That means, in essence, that PFF declared that Darnold typically spotted the right receiver to throw the ball to, then made the needed throw to get it there.
Darnold hit on 16-of-23 passes.
Of the seven incompletions, one was a drop by Cooper Kupp on a third down.
Another was a fourth-quarter pass to Jaxon Smith-Njigba on a second-and-18 play from the Seattle 29 that initially appeared to be completed for a gain of roughly 25 yards before 49ers cornerback Renardo Green broke it up as both fell to the ground.
Another came on a pass to Smith-Njigba when there appeared to be miscommunication on the route.
Another was a deep shot to Smith-Njigba during the final seconds of the first half.
Another came on a pass to Smith-Njigba down the sideline when the timing appeared thrown off when a 49ers defender bumped Smith-Njigba as he made his break.
Another came on a spike to stop the clock at the end of the first half.
In other words, it wouldn’t have taken much for Darnold to have been almost perfect simply throwing the ball.
But a running game that managed just 84 yards on 26 attempts and an inability of any receiver other than Smith-Njigba – who caught nine passes for 124 yards – held the offense back.
“Plenty of things that we have to work on as an offense that we got to get better at,” Kubiak said.
The one big play everyone wants back, of course, is the fumble in the final seconds when Darnold was trying to dump the ball off to Kenneth Walker III in the flat on second-and-five at the 9 with 42 seconds left.
The ball never got there as 49ers end Nick Bosa bullrushed Seattle offensive tackle Abraham Lucas into Darnold, with the ball hitting Lucas’ back and then falling to the ground.
If completed, the play potentially results in both a first down and stopping the clock if Walker had run out of bounds, with Seattle having a first down inside the 5-yard line and over 30 seconds remaining and one time out.
If the play seems like more of a teamwide failure and also just the 49ers winning the snap, Darnold took his share of the blame.
“Obviously, that last play I feel like I could have got the ball out a little bit quicker, to be honest with you,” Darnold said. “And if we checked that ball down, who knows what happens.”
A bigger issue for the Seahawks is getting more balanced production out of their passing attack.
Smith-Njigba got 13 of Darnold’s 23 targets – roughly 57%.
No other Seahawk got more than three targets – Walker, who had three receptions for 4 yards, and Kupp, who had two receptions for 15 yards.
But that also appears not to be an issue with Darnold locking on to Smith-Njigba as much no one else being open.
“You can definitely spread it around, but Jaxon has had a really good camp, and he was getting open,” Kubiak said. “Sam was finding him. But we do have a lot of good targets that we can get the ball to and do a better job of that.”
The Seahawks know feeding the ball that much to Smith-Njigba can’t continue and the likes of Kupp, rookie Tory Horton, Jake Bobo and tight ends Elijah Arroyo and AJ Barner will have to become viable targets more often.
“I think at the end of the day, it just happened to be that way,” Darnold said. “I’m just going through my progressions, going through my reads, and 58% of the time it told me to go to Jax. That’s just how it worked out.
“A lot of games are different. Sometimes they’re going to do things to take Jax, take Coop, take some other guys away from us. And so other guys got to be on their P’s and Q’s in terms of being able to beat one-on-one coverage. That’s what we’re looking at this week, and it’s going to be a fun challenge for us.”
The Seahawks also need to convert better on third downs, hitting on just 3-of-10 last week, though they also then essentially converted a fourth down when they went for it and Kupp drew a defensive pass interference penalty that led to their first touchdown.
The most obvious explanation is that the Seahawks faced too many third-and-longs.
Seattle had five third downs of 4 yards or fewer.
They converted three of them while another was the Kupp drop and another a run for a loss of 1 yard before the fourth down penalty on the 49ers kept the drive alive.
Seattle had five third downs of 5 yards or longer – of 5, 7, 8, 11 and 18 yards – and didn’t convert any.
“We need to have more efficient plays on first and second down and be in a good position to where we can run more plays,” Darnold said. “I think that’s it. We know that as an offense, we just have to do our job every single play, execute better, and I feel like we’ll be in a position to put our foot on the gas a little bit on first and second down.”
Darnold indicated he thinks those things will happen.
“We have to continue to work the details and continue to communicate with each other about what we feel like is working, what isn’t, and just iron out some of the details there,” he said. “… I feel like all the guys are just feeling really confident and really good (and) despite the result on Sunday, I feel like all the guys are in a really good place. We feel like we have a good football team and we’re ready to go.”