Daniel Jeremiah on Why Sam Darnold’s Confidence Has Been Key For the Seahawks | Seattle Sports

Daniel Jeremiah on Why Sam Darnold’s Confidence Has Been Key For the Seahawks | Seattle Sports

JSN’s playing as well as any wide receiver in the league. And Sam is I mean there’s he’s got no fear. Big big guys running. Did you see the play Leonard Williams made on the sideline near the end of that game on Monday night? Oh my god. He’s been doing it the he’s been chasing like that the whole year. I felt like I didn’t get a chance to listen to the entire broadcast. I watched the game on tape. I saw some of the broadcast, but I did hear there was they they gave him some love that I felt like I felt like hasn’t really been there. You know, his his name hasn’t been mentioned as much as I thought it should be, but it felt like during the broadcast they loved him up pretty Can you slow your roll? Okay. He was the 11th graded Seahawk according to PFF Monday night. Defensively, he had a 61 grade. Can you stop throwing your flowers at Leonard? He’s 61 grade DJ. What do you got to say about that? I love PFF for all the information they provide. I don’t know anyone who really looks at the grades. That just I feel like they probably feel like they have to do that, but it’s it’s not really a valuable thing. So, that’s a great example. That would be in the trial, that would be probably exhibit maybe not A, but it would definitely be, you know, B, C, or D. All right. So, as much as as much as we’ve spent, I think every time you’ve come on here, we’ve talked about Leonard Williams, and for good reason. He’s leading the way. But, we have not talked nearly as much about the veteran player. We’ve talked about Byron Murphy a little bit. What about the other veteran player on this defensive line who we’ve should be incredibly familiar with. We’ve been watching him play for what feels like forever and that’s Jiren Reed. He he is such a I don’t know what the right I mean just the the comp let’s just say complete defensive tackle. I remember years ago DJ you’re going to laugh at this cuz I was wrong but I remember what did I say Brock that Jiren Reed at the time I thought was a more complete defensive tackle than Aaron Donald. Now, I was wrong and Donald was such a good pass rusher that ultimately it didn’t matter. And I like but the idea behind it was this guy stops the run and gets after the passer in a way that not everyone in the NFL does. And I can’t believe he’s still doing it all these years later. You know, it’s funny because I just pulled up his numbers because it’s one of those things where I kind of look at him as you refer refer to him as like a glue guy where you’ve got your young exciting players, you’ve got your star players, and then the teams are kind of held together by those guys in the middle. He doesn’t have a ton of production, but he’s someone when you watch him, I’d keep track of the positive plays and the negative plays when you’re going through games and, you know, just kind of things that jump out at you. He’s just like the steady Eddie. And that kind of reflects itself a little bit in the stat sheet where he all he does is stack blocks, you know, he he’s able to free up his linebackers to go make plays. He can get on the other side of the line of scrimmage, kind of force things to other guys. He’s just not he’s not a paper player. It doesn’t necessarily always look great on paper, but man, he’s just a good solid player. Well, the other conversation each and every week, and it’s obvious, is the quarterback. And last year you or last week you did a little twist on Sir Mixelot’s song about butts and you said uh your new song was No butts uh when it came to uh to Sammy. Still no butts. Um look, I I’m sure there’s a couple plays he’d like to have back in that one. Um you know, just gripping the ball a little tighter in the end zone. We’ll start there. Um Stingley made a nice play on the pick. I mean, he undercut it. kind of almost baited him a little bit on that um on the pick, but he also made I could pull out five throws as you could from that game. They were just incredible high conviction big- time throws. So, no, I’m not I’m not uh I’m not coming off of him at all from that. That’s that’s a miracle, though. What? They turned over four times and still won the won the ball game. So, you don’t want to make a living doing that. You know what’s remarkable about it? And I was actually just we chat about with Mike on Tuesday, but it hits me and strikes me right now a couple days later, DJ. And that is Sam’s ability to go back to your connective tissue to build that in a season like he did in Minnesota last year, right? With both Addison and obviously one of the games best Jefferson and receiver. And to do this in seven months with JSN, I mean those throws he’s making, those four or five throws that you’re talking about with conviction, he’s throwing them open. He’s thrown him in the red zone into as tight a window as you’re ever going to see. I mean, do you put that on JSN? Do you put that on Sam? Do you put it on both as far as building a connection through seven months that looks like they’ve played together for years? I don’t I don’t see how you could split the baby. I mean, I I I think you you know, you look at it and it’s like I give 100% of the credit to Sam for how he’s playing. I give 100% of the credit to to JSN. You know, I don’t know how you could say it’s more this person or the other person. That’s um you know, it’s just been impressive when you’re throwing when you’ve got those I I call what you call them, Brock, kind of those overunder throws where you’ve got an underneath defender and an over the top defender. You got to get it up and down like that is an incredibly difficult throw. And it’s also understanding the spacing from the receiver standpoint of where he needs to be so you give that throw a chance. And there there’s there’s two or three of those every single game that you watch of Seattle this year. And so yeah, JSN’s playing as well as any wide receiver in the league. And Sam is I mean there’s he’s got no fear. I mean he’s just playing with a lot of confidence and and aggressiveness. I’ I’d much rather do that. Like I this is the extreme, right? But if you look at you know uh Fields and then some to some degree the way that Herz has played where there’s just I’m not going to turn it over. I’m not going to turn it over. I’m not going to turn it over. like that’s hard to put up points and and and be an explosive offense unless you’ve got a little bit of, you know, a not reckless, but aggressive, like selectively aggressive would be the term I would use. He’s he’s reminding me I I didn’t ever think I would ever say this, but having played with Marvin Harrison for a couple years, DJ, and we use Zimman Ross St. Brown because the body type is more similar there. he’s thicker leg and everything else and he’s probably not as fast on a 40 yard metric as Marvin was, but their their feet like never leave the ground. Their change of direction at full speed and then I mean I remember my first mini camp with Marvin and I threw like a comeback and I was like, “Oh crap.” You know, little guy it’s going to be 5t over his head and then like and then like Gumby he goes up like what? How did he just catch that and put his feet down? Like man, JSN is starting to change the narrative, I think, of the upside for me at least. I don’t know if he has for you. Yeah, I mean, he’s living on the outside, winning on the outside, and there’s not a route that he can’t run. We always knew he was, you know, he was willing to do the work in the middle of the field and running through balls, staying grounded through the catch, all that stuff. And now you’re watching him, you know, just weave guys, you know, get getting shoulders turned, snapping off routes on the outside, creating a ridiculous amount of separation. I I haven’t looked at uh the PFF numbers there. That would be a more meaningful stat. But he’s got He was 90.1. He was the highest grade. Yeah. Check that out. But even like just the stats on creating separation when you’re outside. I mean, I got I got to believe he’s doing that as well as anybody in the league right now. You know who I wish was a Seahawk? Who’s that? Cam Scatabo. He’s fun. He’s really fun. He’s exactly what this team could use. like it just if you added that level of personality and running a bit like and physicality, all of it, it would be such a great fit with this team and everything else that they’re doing. I went back and was just looking at the draft last night cuz I was like, man, why isn’t this guy a Seahawk? We talked about him. He’d be awesome. It’d be really fun. He was drafted at the beginning of the fourth round, as you know. So, the last pick that the Seahawks made before that was Jaylen Milro. As you look at it today, would the Seahawks have been better off drafting? And I I’m I look, I’ve been a big Milro. I love the pick. I’m not crushing them for it, but would they be better off today having drafted Scataboo than Milro? I mean, I think you could look at where they were in that position room and they felt pretty good about those two guys. So, I mean, that kind of comes back to best player available, highest rated. I’d have to go back and see how different I had them stacked up, but I I that would not have stood out to me at the time. And I think Scataboo has been given tremendous opportunity there that I don’t know if he would get all those touches and carries with the backfield that are in Seattle right now. So I I I would yeah I would say that was not not a way I would go at this point in time. I’m going to let that play out a little bit. But Scataboo is fun. He’s kind of to me reminds me of like somehow Mike Alott and Rob Gronkowsky had a baby. It would be just like a little little Scataboo runner out there like a Tasmanian devil. The personality element of it though and just what he seems to do for the rest of the team around him. It’s amazing. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. a caveman. We are 12 days away, I believe, from the NFL trade deadline. It’s not like the baseball trade deadline that our Mariners woof benefited a whole lot. Wouldn’t have been where they were without Naylor and Suarez in particular. 12 days to the NFL trade deadline. Do you expect a bunch of action and significant moves? I think so. I think there’s there’s some teams that have already signaled by some moves that they’re, you know, they’re willing to to be active and and I don’t Cleveland doing what they did with Flaco and you see some of these other trades. I think they’ll there might be some, you know, vet for vet stuff, too. You know, I can help you, you can help me type things, but this is a totally different era of GM that’s just a lot more willing, a lot more active. Um, looking at the big picture. I think one of the one of the uh one of the things that’s taken place over the last five years that I think has changed and made this way more fun and way more active is that teams have be have really got into pick swaps. So the whole thing is like well I want a player but I don’t want to lose a pick. So now you can justify it by saying well maybe I’m sending out a four but I’m getting a six back. At least I still have my same a lotment of draft picks even though they might be a little bit later on in the draft. that that has made it a lot easier for these moves to get made instead of just player for pick. All right. So, how do you handle it if you’re if you’re the Seahawks and your secondary is about to get a whole lot healthier. You’re going to get Spoon back. You’re going to get love back. You really like what you’ve gotten so far from the rookie Eman Warry. I mean, we could spend a whole while talking about him. He was awesome the last couple of weeks. Um, you got Woolen, you got Job. Like, how does all of that shake out? And specifically, what do you do with Reek? Do you try to trade him at the deadline or do you say, “Hey, depth is more important. I want him and Job just in case there’s another injury.” I’ve seen, you know, I’ve seen his name banned about a bunch and people have talked about, you know, teams are in the corner market that he could be had. I’m I always go back to u conversations at Cutown Day every single year around the league. If you talk to every GM, they’ll tell you the same thing. Ah, we just need one more tackle and one more corner. you know, if we could just find a tackle in a corner and there’s going to be attrition. So, I I to me if I could if I have any depth on the offensive line or in the secondary, I don’t know that I’m willing to deal from that at this point in time. If you got a team that’s capable of going on a run, it’s, you know, I get where he is and and you got guys coming back and he hasn’t been what you hoped he would be, but I don’t know. What are you going to get? You going to get a fifth or sixth round pick? What if you could get a guard? What what what if you could get a starting guard? Yeah. I mean, I don’t know who who in the league is going to be willing to do that. You know, that’s Yeah, if there’s a starting caliber guard out there, yeah, sure, why not? But I don’t I don’t know that he’s going to he’s going to command that type of return. Yeah, I guess that becomes the challenge DJ as well is and it’s it is a baseball perspective like, okay, is he more valuable for us the rest of this season because they’re not going to resign him. I don’t think there’s any world where where Reek Woolen is going to be resigned as a Seattle Seahawk. It’s going to be Cross, going to be JSN, it’s going to be others. you’re going to take care of before him and I don’t think he’s shown the maturity or the kind of guy care factor that they want. So, if there is an opportunity like baseball, you know, he’s not coming back here, can we trade him as a rental? But to your point, probably not enough trade value back compared to the depth that you have. Yeah, I wouldn’t think so. But, you know, you find a team out there that suffers a couple injuries this week and you get desperate and then maybe that changes the math a little bit. But, you know, as it stands right now, I don’t know that you’re getting much more than that. Okay, bigger picture. You watch the tape of these Seahawks? You do each and every week on the Daniel Jeremiah show presented by my buddy at Marquee Data. So, you do it every week. Anybody else pop? Other than the just characters that that we know, anything stand out to you like, “Oo, this guy’s kind of kind of intriguing because I had an NFL guy text me about the Seahawks and I’m curious if your eye ever got to this guy?” Well, I’m still an Ernest Jones fan, so you know, watching him buzz around that that Yeah, that was pretty sick. That was a pretty athletic play. Um I’m trying to think I’m going through looking at the roster and seeing what other names pop. Well, I need your binder, DJ. I need your binder. Do you have your Do you have your binders handy? No, I packed up I packed up everything because I’m going up to LA. I got literally I’m doing this knocking out a podcast and I got to do this Thursday night game. I don’t have your binders. Brock just wants to ask you about someone named Drake Thomas because most most people don’t know who he is and Brock just figured out his first name because he kept calling I knew Drake but I never I was like Drake Rogers, Drake Smith. Drake what? Why am I Why am I blanking on him? Give me What did the uh Yeah. So and then I’m like well maybe he’s Zach Thomas’s little cousin. He talked about the birth 42. Bro, he was everywhere. Did I do him? Yeah. Hold on. Let me see. I have my I have my Excel sheet here. What this year? Oh, no. No. He’s been a couple years. I believe he was out of NC State. Unbelievably productive. He has like 29 inch arms. He’s got like, you know, just really short Brock Pury Tyrannosaurus Rex arms. And so I think the length 23. He was a college free agent in 23. I’m He does not ring a bell. I’m going to look real quick. I don’t think that I’ve he strikes me as, and Brock maybe I’m wrong, as one of these sort of modern linebackers that might have been a safety 10 years ago and now he’s a linebacker because that’s what they’re looking for is more of that runaround, get into the secondary kind of linebacker. But what’s been great is he does tackle pretty darn well for that size. I mean, he’s able to to stick his nose in there and actually tackles pretty well. reading between the lines by the way and this was the one cool little nugget that coach McDonald gave us on on Tuesday talking about him cuz he was a lot of the talk and the numbers popped and he played and he and Tyrese Knight have been splitting and not on Monday night like it was his job and McDonald if you listen to him DJ basically said the scouts just pounded the table for this guy he can play don’t look at the height don’t look at the length he can play he can hit he can get off blocks he’s not and sure enough man he was right there with EJ at the second level just a game changer on Monday night. Yeah, I did not. Unfortunately, I went back through my sequence list from that year. Be better. He didn’t make the 400. He didn’t make the He didn’t get picked. Come on. What does that have to say? Somebody that doesn’t make the top 400 could start a Monday Night Football game. Like, honestly, like that’s Oh, it happens every week. It happens every week. Why? Um because guys have fallen through the cracks and I’m going off of what teams have told me. So, in terms of who to watch, so when his name when names don’t come across my desk of you need to watch this guy because you could talk about him when he gets picked when everybody assumes they’re going to be undrafted. Um, that’s how that’s how that happens and it’s exactly the reason why you mentioned it. There’s two types of undrafted players that hit. You get the unbelievable, you know, heightweight speed athleticism with no production. Um, so you’re betting on the athlete who has no football, you know, history. or you get the incredible football player with none of the height, weight, speed, athleticism. And it’s a debate that rages in the draft room every year when you get to the sixth or seventh round. And I’ve been on teams that have believed in one thing and I’ve been on teams that have believed the other. We’re taking all traits and we’ll coach him up into a football player. Or let’s just take a football player, he’ll he’ll find a way to make our team and help us out. It depends by the position. If I’m taking corners, I’m always gonna bet on the traits and just say, you know, if you’re 465, I I that’s going to be tough for you to hide that person, you know, and his deficiencies are going to be exposed. If you’re an interior offensive lineman with little T-Rex arms, but you’re a really good player, they have a chance. If you’re an inside linebacker, same thing we’re talking about here, you’ve got a chance. But usually edge rushers, if you got an edge rusher who’s got 15 sacks at Montana State, but he’s, you know, he’s got a slow get off. He’s got a 28 inch vertical like that. Congratulations on the Big Sky accolades, but that’s not for me. I’m going to go ahead and go with the traits. That’s hilarious. So, so corner, you said you you’re okay. Is corner a traits thing or wasn’t tra? Corner’s traits for me. You wouldn’t like Josh Job then. He is not a traits guy, but man, he is a feisty sucker. He gets out there and battles and the hands maybe aren’t ideal, but he is a feisty feisty dude. And I relate to that a little bit. Hey, we got to go. Uh, you got to go as well. Enjoy the podcast. Enjoy Thursday night game. We’ll talk to you next week.

NFL Network Analyst and former NFL scout Daniel Jeremiah joins Brock & Salk for his weekly appearance to discuss standout Seahawks from Monday night, Sam Darnold’s game, trade possibilities and under the radar Seahawks performances.

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0:00 – Is Leonard Williams getting the credit he deserves?
1:33 – What Jarran Reed bring to the Seahawks
3:00 – Don’t panic about 1 bad Sam Darnold game
4:10 – Sam Darnold & JSN’s connection
5:40 – How JSN has evolved his game
7:10 – Could the Seahawks use another RB?
8:45 – NFL Trade Deadline Preview
9:52 – Should the Seahawks Trade Riq Woolen?
12:08 – Underrated Seahawks so far this season – Drake Thomas

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Listen to The Brock & Salk Show weekdays from 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. on Seattle Sports 710 AM or on-demand wherever you listen to podcasts.
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https://sports.mynorthwest.com/category/brock-and-salk/

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