The Seattle Seahawks defeated the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 4 in a penalty-filled game. It was an ugly win, but a win nonetheless. That partly includes quarterback Sam Darnold's play, as he began the game with an interception on his first play.
Thankfully, he rebounded and was, well...fine. The offense felt disjointed, but maybe that is a good sign, too. After all, the unit scored 30 points, and that's going to win most games. Does Darnold need to play better overall? Yes, but it is easy to forget this is only his second full game since the Super Bowl.
Maybe he is still shaking off a bit of rust. The team is scoring points, but the style in which that is happening seems unsustainable, especially against teams with better defenses. Week 5 against the San Francisco 49ers could be truth-or-tell for Seattle's offense.
Takeaways from Seattle Seahawks' Sam Darnold's Week 4 performance
The turnovers aren't promising
What is easy to forget from last season, as the team won the Super Bowl, is that Sam Darnold also led the NFL in turnovers with 20 (14 interceptions and six fumbles). While there are easy excuses to make as to when those turnovers happened and that the Seahawks didn't turn the ball over in the playoffs, leading the league in that category is no good.
In the first two games, which saw Drew Lock mainly be QB1 as Darnold was hurt on the first series of Week 1 and he completely missed Week 2, Lock didn't have a turnover. In the last two games, Darnold has three turnovers, including throwing an interception on the first offensive play of the game for Seattle.
Darnold still needs to spread the ball around more
Lock was mostly guilty of not throwing multiple passes to receivers other than Jaxon Smith-Njigba, but he still targeted Rashid Shaheed and Cooper Kupp a bit more than Darnold. In Week 4, Seattle's true QB1 threw 22 passes, and 14 of them were to Jaxon Smith-Njigba and three non-wide receivers.
Shaheed was more effective the couple of times he lined up in the backfield as a running back. He had one catch for 20 yards. Kupp caught one pass for 13 yards. Tory Horton was targeted once, and that was a six-yard touchdown. JSN had his least productive game of the season, though he was targeted nine times. The ball must be spread around more.
There is no quarterback controversy
Social media will continue to be a toxic environment in terms of people (or bots) wanting the Seattle Seahawks to replace Sam Darnold with Drew Lock. That isn't going to happen, isn't a realistic option, and shouldn't occur. Darnold led his team to a Super Bowl and might still be fully acclimating to a somewhat new offensive system coordinated by Brian Fleury.
If Darnold keeps turning the ball over, either early in the game or late, might Seattle begin asking themselves whether they see Darnold as the long-term QB1? Likely, but that doesn't mean Lock moves up a spot. The next starting quarterback could come in the NFL draft in the next year or two.
Add us as a preferred source on Google