When quarterback Sam Darnold threw his second interception of Thursday night’s game against the Rams while down 16 points in the fourth quarter, it looked like he was on his way to the kind of result that has helped define his last two seasons.
Darnold’s return to the starting ranks with the Vikings and Seahawks has led to a lot of good things and a lot of wins, but it’s also seen him fail to maintain a high level of play in the biggest moments of the season. Darnold played poorly in back-to-back losses that cost the Vikings a division title and knocked them out of the playoffs last season, and he threw four interceptions in a 21-19 loss to the Rams in Los Angeles earlier this season.
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On Thursday night, though, things wound up bouncing the other way. Darnold went 8-of-12 for 101 yards, two touchdowns, and two two-point conversions after his second interception and the Seahawks came back for a 38-37 overtime win that put them in first place in the NFC West with two games left in the regular season.
“I’ve had games like this in the past where I haven’t played necessarily my best football and turned the ball over, but at the end of the game you see yourself on the other side,” Darnold said, via the team’s website. “It’s not great when you have interceptions and turnovers. You want to limit that. But all you can do is fight back. For us, I was just going to continue to plug away, get the ball to open receivers, and go through my reads.”
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said after the game that “our story has stayed the same since day one” when it comes to Darnold’s capabilities, but his previous big-game results had left a lot of other doubts. Thursday night will erase some of them and an extended playoff run would put almost all of them to bed.
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