{"id":104976,"date":"2025-06-05T03:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T03:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/104976\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T03:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T03:35:10","slug":"mike-macdonald-reaffirms-sam-darnold-as-seahawks-starter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/104976\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Macdonald Reaffirms Sam Darnold As Seahawks’ Starter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite a top-10 finish in the 2024 MVP race, doubts surrounding Sam Darnold<\/a>\u2018s future as a starter have persisted into his tenure in Seattle. Seahawks head coach\u00a0Mike Macdonald put an end to those doubts on Tuesday, emphatically shooting down a question about another quarterback earning the starting job. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, you guys are crazy,\u201d said Macdonald on Seattle Sports 710-AM (via ESPN\u2019s Brady Henderson<\/a>). \u201cI respect that you\u2019ve got to ask it, but it\u2019s just a crazy question. It\u2019s just not going to happen. Sam\u2019s our starting quarterback. We love him. He\u2019s doing a tremendous job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darnold struggled at the start of practice on Monday, per Henderson, throwing two interceptions within the span of three plays and holding onto the ball for too long behind the line of scrimmage. The veteran did turn things around as practice went on and, reportedly, bested the defense on some goal line reps. Those early mistakes did not seem to concern Macdonald, though. \u201cWe\u2019ve got time. It\u2019s June 3,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to get plenty of reps. We\u2019ll get those things fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darnold came to Seattle on a three-year, $105MM contract<\/a>, looking to fill the shoes left vacant by another bust-turned-Pro Bowler, Geno Smith<\/a>, traded away<\/a> just days earlier. The only competition Darnold faces for the starting gig is the incumbent backup Drew Lock<\/a> and rookie third-round pick Jalen Milroe<\/a>, a prospect widely seen as a developmental project with outstanding athleticism.<\/p>\n

The use of a third-round pick on a quarterback so soon after signing your new starter could certainly have ruffled some feathers, but Macdonald made sure to avoid the awkwardness we\u2019ve seen in situations past, like in Baltimore with Joe Flacco<\/a> and Lamar Jackson<\/a> or in Green Bay with Aaron Rodgers<\/a> and Jordan Love<\/a>. The head coach made sure to communicate with Darnold<\/a> about their intentions to take a younger prospect who could impact the offense in a lot of ways.<\/p>\n

While the current setup shows similarities to when a rookie Russell Wilson<\/a> won the Seahawks starting job as a third-round rookie over free agent addition Matt Flynn, Flynn never displayed a full season of talent as Darnold did last year. Macdonald has instead said that the plan is for Milroe \u201cto play a few plays a game in specialty packages,\u201d while Darnold will \u201cstill get well over 90% of the snaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ely Allen contributed to this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite a top-10 finish in the 2024 MVP race, doubts surrounding Sam Darnold\u2018s future as a starter have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[7,753,6,1878,238,237,261,2635],"class_list":{"0":"post-104976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-seahawks","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jalen-milroe","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sam-darnold","12":"tag-seahawks","13":"tag-seattle","14":"tag-seattle-seahawks","15":"tag-seattleseahawks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114628665495063583","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}