There are not too many second chances handed out to NFL quarterbacks. Third chances are rarer still. A fourth chance to reinvent yourself? Forget it.
Yet that is exactly what Sam Darnold is making the most of as he leads the Seattle Seahawks into their first Super Bowl in more than a decade.
The eighth-year quarterback is with his fifth NFL team, and the only one that signed him based on who they knew he was, not what they hoped he might become.
It has certainly proved a shrewd acquisition, with Darnold carrying on the fine form he showed last season with the Vikings, who may well be kicking themselves for putting their faith in JJ McCarthy over the 2018 third overall pick.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but jettisoning a man who threw for more than 4,000 yards and 54 touchdowns did seem slightly reckless at the time. Now it just looks downright foolish.
Darnold, for his part, had probably grown used to rejection – he has tasted his fair share of it. At least this time it would have felt different, though even he might not have imagined that a year after being let go he would be facing the New England Patriots at Levi’s Stadium in Super Bowl LX.
Sam Darnold (pictured) is preparing for his Super Bowl debut, on his fifth team in the NFL
He started with the New York Jets but has since bounced around, from coast to coast
As Kyle Brandt put it on GMFB: ‘Guys on their fifth team do not start Super Bowls. It’s happened three times in history: hasn’t happened since Chris Chandler on the Falcons [in 1998].’
But it is worth recapping the full circle that has taken the California native and USC alum across the country and back to his home state for the biggest game of his life.
Darnold was taken third overall by the New York Jets in 2018. In a Monday Night Football game against the Detroit Lions he became the youngest opening-day starting quarterback since the AFL–NFL merger.
His first pass attempt was picked off for a touchdown, but he bounced back to throw for 198 yards and two scores. It set the tone for his time in Meadowlands, during which he threw 39 interceptions in 39 games.
The reasons for Darnold’s struggles with the Jets extend far beyond his own failings – a bout of glandular fever in his rookie season, poor play design from head coach Adam Gase, and a porous offensive line all played a factor – but the confession that he was ‘seeing ghosts’ might as well have been an admission that he was ready to hang up his cleats.
He was duly passed over when incoming head coach Robert Salah was choosing a starting quarterback and after three years in New York he was done.
Darnold (right) and the Seahawks are the favorite against Drake Maye (left) and the Patriots
Darnold poses with long-time girlfriend Katie Hoofnagle, who will be supporting him Sunday
History would suggest that that should have been that for Darnold’s claim to be an NFL-caliber starter. He now accepts that trying the ‘hero ball’ that marked his time at USC wasn’t the way to cut it in the NFL.
‘I felt like in college, I was going one to my second progression to get outside and make a play,’ Darnold admitted this week. ‘Whereas in the NFL, it’s not that easy. You know, you have some of these guys that are 6ft 4, 6ft 5, they run 4.40 [40-yard dash time], you know, chasing me down at the line of scrimmage, and quite frankly, I’m not fast enough to get away from them anymore.
‘I think just that mindset of trying to make a play just got me in a little bit of trouble early in my career.’
But then came a second chance. In 2021 Carolina came calling and after winning his first three games it seemed that he would revert to type. A 4-7 record meant that by the time 2022 came around, he was slated as back-up to the man taken two picks ahead of him in the Draft, Baker Mayfield.
From New York, Darnold moved on to the Carolina Panthers but quickly became the back-up
His next job was as back-up to the 2022 Draft’s ‘Mr Irrelevant ‘, Brock Purdy, in San Francisco. One losing start with the 49ers having already secured play-off place was, on the face of things, all he had to show for his time on the West Coast.
But the reason that Darnold is on his way back to San Francisco next week is what went on behind the scenes at Levi’s Stadium.
‘That year was incredible,’ Darnold told the Richard Sherman podcast at the start of this season. ‘To be able to learn football from Kyle [Shanahan], from that entire staff that was there, [former QB coach] Brian Griese, the Kubiaks, [now-Seahawks offensive coordinator] Klint, who obviously, we’re with now.
‘But that was just a great experience, and being around those players, too, some of those dogs that are on that team, getting to experience what they do every single day.’
It still might have been too much for lesser men. Darnold’s 2018 scout report highlighted his ability to put mistakes behind him – it has become the hallmark of his career.
He was QB2 again in San Francisco, behind the NFL Draft’s Mr Irrelevant Brock Purdy
‘I have a ton of confidence in myself,’ he said this week. ‘I’ve always believed in myself. But there was always doubt, you know, that kind of crept in. I think, you know, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t.’
But after his time in Santa Clara came that breakout banner year in Minneapolis. The Vikings’ willingness to give him his fourth chance saw him build up a 1,533-yard rapport with Justin Jefferson, which he has replicated this year with Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who led the league with 1,793 receiving yards. Last year he was one and done in the postseason; now he is one game from the pinnacle of his sport.
Brandt added: ‘I was at the 2018 draft. I remember it. Jerry world, Baker, Lamar [Jackson], Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, I love you. None of those guys, none of those guys have been to a Super Bowl. It’s insane.
‘This is why we love this stuff. Sam Donald, who, just 20 minutes ago, was getting divorced from the Carolina Panthers and sitting on the sideline for the Niners and was dumped by the Vikings for nine is now standing above all those guys.’
Indeed the irony that he could be the first quarterback from the 2018 Draft to start and win a Super Bowl is lost on no one.
In the seven full seasons since they joined the NFL in the same Draft class, Allen and Jackson between them have accounted for three league MVP titles.
Minnesota made a huge mistake letting Darnold leave after an impressive 2024 season
Allen has reached the playoffs every year apart from his rookie season, and in two of those seven seasons he has been to the AFC Championship Game.
Jackson has had five seasons of playoff football (missing one postseason with injury) and reached the Conference Championship game once. Those three combined AFC Championship defeats all came against Patrick Mahomes.
This was supposed to be the year one of the two – both one-team men around whom franchises have been built – got their hands on the Lombardi; Jackson didn’t even make the postseason.
So now Darnold has the chance to beat them to it. The player who once spoke of ‘seeing ghosts’ is one step from well and truly exorcising them.
