29-13 win over the Patriots<\/a>, completing an arc that seemed improbable when he first signed with San Francisco.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable. Just everything that\u2019s happened in my career, but to do it with this team, I wouldn\u2019t want it any other way,\u201d said Darnold, who completed 19 of 38 passes for 202 yards and a touchdown. \u201cI\u2019m so proud of our guys. Our defense, I mean I can\u2019t say enough good things about our defense, our special teams. I know we won the Super Bowl, but we could\u2019ve been a little better on offense, but I don\u2019t care about that right now. It\u2019s an unbelievable feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
But not a surprise, at least not to Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll he\u2019s done since he walked in the door is be a tremendous player and a tremendous leader,\u201d Macdonald said after Seattle captured the championship.<\/p>\n
Darnold\u2019s ultimate victory came after being lost in the NFL wilderness. The Jets traded the No. 3 overall pick in the 2018 draft three years later to Carolina for a second-rounder and a pair of sixth-rounders. He landed with the 49ers and Vikings each for a year before signing a three-year deal with the Seahawks last spring.<\/p>\n
The last Super Bowl among the four teams that let Darnold go was the 49ers\u2019 title following the 1994 season.<\/p>\n
Darnold backed up Brock Purdy with the 49ers in 2023 and parlayed his decent showing \u2014 including a start in the regular-season finale \u2014 into a deal with the Minnesota Vikings.<\/p>\n
He shone brightly for the Vikings last season with 35 touchdowns and more than 4,300 passing yards before wilting in a winner-take-NFC North finale against Detroit and a wild-card loss to the Rams in which he took an astounding nine sacks and turned the ball over twice.<\/p>\n
Despite that rough in his postseason debut, those first 16 games in Minnesota were enough to convince the Seahawks. Seattle signed him last offseason to a contract with $55 million guaranteed and traded Geno Smith to the Raiders.<\/p>\n
Darnold, 28, repaid their faith with more than 4,000 passing yards in the regular season and a career-high 67.7 completion percentage en route to a 14-3 season, his second consecutive year with that record.<\/p>\n
He was even better in the playoffs, with five touchdowns and no interceptions. He followed up a star turn in the NFC Championship Game (25-of-36 for 346 yards and three scores) with a less thrilling game Sunday, as he went 19-of-38 for 202 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n
Not that it matters to the first USC quarterback to hoist a Lombardi Trophy as a starter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if there is a quarterback in NFL history that\u2019s been through the things he\u2019s had to go through in the first five years,\u201d Seahawks receiver Cooper Kupp said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo believe in himself, to overcome everyone telling him he wasn\u2019t that guy anymore, that he couldn\u2019t be a starter, that he couldn\u2019t be a productive quarterback, to just come back to work and just commit to his process and then to go out there in the biggest moments this year over and over and over again and just show up, stand in the pocket and make the tough throws and manage the game, it\u2019s an unbelievable story. I am so glad I got to know the new Sam Darnold.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA CLARA \u2014 Two years ago, Sam Darnold was a backup quarterback for the 49ers. Learning under Kyle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,1921,929,6,252,261,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-739669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-inside-sports","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","13":"tag-seattle-seahawks","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116039367301685890","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739669","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=739669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}