Sam Darnold has been quite good for the Seattle Seahawks for most of 2025, but even during his best games, he has trended toward being brilliant for only a half. The Seattle Seahawks start fast, but sometimes in the second half of games, the offense can fall into a funk.
Plus, most of Darnold's turnovers have come in the second half of games. In Seattle's three losses, the quarterback's late-game mistakes have set the team up for failure. Had he continued that tendency in Week 14, Seattle could have fallen into the Atlanta Falcons' trap and lost ground in the NFC West race.
Darnold made sure that didn't happen. He threw an interception in the first half, and his team was only tied at 6 with a not-very-good Falcons team at halftime. The last few weeks have not been the quarterback's best, so 12s might have wondered if they were beginning to see the real version of Sam Darnold.
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold changed the narrative in Week 14
In the second half, the quarterback changed all the narratives about him. While Atlanta is a blitz-heavy team, and the quarterback has struggled with those kinds of schemes in the past, including in Week 13, Seattle's QB1 did not make bad choices in the second half, began to find wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba again, and coolly and calmly set Atlanta on fire.
Darnold finished 20 of 30 passing for 249 yards and three touchdowns, all of the TDs coming in the second half, of course. Instead of wilting under the pressure of potentially losing a game that the Seahawks had no business losing, the quarterback played some of his best football of the season.
He didn't turn the ball over, and he wasn't a mess in the more tense moments of a close game. He has been guilty of the opposite over the course of his career, and that includes games this season.
The Seattle Seahawks quarterback still has many unanswered questions that many have asked about him. Can he play well in the most important games? Can he elevate his team late in the season? We don't yet know that.
What we learned about Sam Darnold in Week 14, though, is that he can adjust from one game to the next and from one to the other. After the Minnesota Vikings made the quarterback look silly at times with blitzes, the Falcons couldn't for an entire game. Darnold deserves credit for that. Now, the Seahawks simply need him to start beating the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers.