One thing most Seattle Seahawks fans can probably agree on is that if Los Angeles Rams safety Kamren Kinchens misses the next game against Seattle, that would be fine. Not that he needs to get hurt, of course. Maybe he just wants to go shopping instead of playing.
The safety has spent two seasons in the NFL, and he has easily been at his disruptive best against the Seahawks. He has six interceptions overall, and four have come against the 12s' favorite team. That includes two in Week 11 when LA beat Seattle 21-19.
The game was far from quarterback Sam Darnold's best and by far his worst game of the season. He had zero touchdown passes but four interceptions. He is the only quarterback since 2000 to have three games in his career where he has tossed no touchdowns but at least four picks. That's awful.
Rams safety Kamren Kinchens drops the brutal truth about Seahawks' Sam Darnold
Not to totally trash Darnold, of course. He's been very good for most of the year, while making critical errors in each of Seattle's three losses. The difference was in Week 11, he kept making them. Plus, of his league-leading 14 turnovers this season (10 interceptions and four fumbles), 10 have come in the second half. Three of those second half mistakes happened against the Rams.
After the game, Kinchens, who had the first and third picks that Darnold tossed against LA, told reporters something rather harsh about the Seahawks quarterback. The issue wasn't that the safety was trying to be me; he was simply speaking matter-of-factly about his observations of Darnold. That somehow made everything worse.
Kinchens said, "The rush contains him, and he wants to get rid of the ball, and he’s flinching up. He don’t want to get sacked. He’s just trying to get the ball out of his hands, so that’s when I knew there was an opportunity."
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Something a quarterback never wants to hear themselves defined as is someone who flinches. That means they can be rattled, and while a good quarterback can be rattled at times, an elite one rarely is.
At times this season, Sam Darnold has played like an elite quarterback, but he didn't at all in Week 11. Two of his turnovers also came on the final drives of losses to the San Francisco 49ers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That cannot keep being the case.
If the Seattle Seahawks are going to reach a championship level of success in 2025, Sam Darnold has to be at his best in the most important games as well as those that are assumed to be wins before kickoff. Seattle's defense is good enough to beat anyone. Darnold needs to be, too.