'Tough son of a bitch:' The Lessons of Sam Darnold
Tom Brady didn't believe. Neither did the Jets... the Panthers... the Vikings. So, here's Sam Darnold one win away from a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks. Is the rest of the NFL paying attention?
Go Long subscribers can access this longform piece — and all Super Bowl LX coverage — in full.
Our aim is to take you behind the curtain.
SAN FRANCISCO — Worlds collided for Tom Brady. The all-time great is a walking conflict of interest as both minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders and Fox’s top color commentator on NFL games. As the Seattle Seahawks polished off a 31-27 win over the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship, it was time for play-by-play man Kevin Burkhardt and Brady to rhapsodize on Sam Darnold’s dazzling performance.
Burkhardt referenced everything Darnold has endured. “People doubting you,” he said. “You won 14 games with Minnesota and they got rid of you.”
Brady chimed in. “He’s been a gunslinger,” the all-timer said. “He’s more explosive than surgical. Led the league in turnovers, but today absolutely flawless in his decision-making. So accurate.” The pitch of his voice then changed for effect. “There’s nothing better than playing your biggest game in the biggest moment of your life.”
With that, highlights started to loop on the screen. But honestly? Fox’s production team should’ve instead instructed a cameraman to slowly zoom into Brady’s face inside the broadcasting booth to the tune of that cheeky, circus-like Curb Your Enthusiasm theme song.
Last offseason — as the Raiders’ end-all, be-all quarterback authority — Brady wanted nothing to do with Darnold.
Raiders coaches got a kick out of seeing how stories were spun.
The man with the final say at quarterback in Vegas wasn’t the head coach or the general manager. Rather, the best to ever play the position. Initially, Brady tried to convince Matthew Stafford to play in Vegas. Much like his swing at Ben Johnson, this dalliance failed. Conversation then shifted to Geno Smith and Sam Darnold as potential answers. Head coach Pete Carroll coached Smith in Seattle but, one coach says the “consensus” amongst the Raiders coaching staff was to ink Darnold because he’s six years younger.
Brady could not get on board. Brady had the muscle.
Vegas traded for Smith.
“The funny thing to me is they say, ‘Well, Geno was Pete’s handpicked guy,’ but that’s not true,” says one coach from that Raiders’ staff. “That was Tom’s guy because he didn’t want Sam Darnold. That was really smart by Tom because it’s great cover. Everyone will just assume that Geno was Pete’s guy.’”
If the New York Jets give up on you as a quarterback, consider it a badge of honor. This franchise is beyond parody and warrants zero respect until further notice. But when the man with seven rings doesn’t believe, the scar could cut deep. Of course, this is also the theme of Sam Darnold’s NFL life. He’s forever the quarterback left for dead.
Trashed as an abject bust in New York.
Recycled by Carolina.
Rehabilitated in San Francisco.
Revitalized in Minnesota.
The Vikings quit Darnold cold turkey, opting for J.J. McCarthy and the coveted rookie contract window over what their eyeballs showed them all season long and John Schneider was much obliged. The Seahawks GM heard Darnold wanted to get back to the West Coast, loved his gunslingin’ DNA and signed the San Clemente, Calif., native to a reasonable deal worth $33.5 million per year. Now, Darnold has a chance to complete the most insane quarterback trajectory we’ve seen since Kurt Warner went from stocking shelves at a Hy-Vee grocery store in Iowa to hoisting the Lombardi Trophy 26 years ago.
Ahead of Super Bowl LX, Go Long spoke to coaches and players who’ve been with Darnold day-in and day-out from USC to today.
The lessons are endless.
Teammates do not like Sam Darnold, no, they profess their eternal love for the guy. I thought we’d need to gently tiptoe into such a fragile topic with current Vikings players. Uh, no. They’ve got no problem describing him as the one who got away, optics be damned. Players rarely ever gush over a quarterback to such extremes. They had Sam. They lost Sam. They want to make their affection abundantly clear to the world.
His greatest weapon was camouflaged and bastardized all these years. Surrounded by slop, Darnold was typecast as reckless. Surrounded by competence, he’s now fearless. Truth is, he always had the guts to attempt throws peers consider impossible. Throws that win championships. Harrison Smith makes an excellent point. The Vikings’ immortal safety doesn’t think his former quarterback outright reinvented himself, reminding everyone this was a 2018 third overall pick who already possessed a rocket arm. Darnold’s existence in this year’s Super Bowl, to him, more so serves as a giant mirror to the rest of the football world — “a reflection of us.”
And if anyone in this sport could declare themselves a victim, it’s the one hurled into a lake of fire that draft night. Publicly, we never hear Darnold lament his hideous circumstances. Privately, he’s also the same guy. He never bitched about ownership or coaching or his supporting cast or the media to teammates.
If Darnold is the victor Sunday night, a tornado of emotions will reverberate through all cities he once called home.
Players in Minnesota will wonder What if? Players will see Darnold atop that dais and know that quarterback should be in purple, not lime. Bitterness will not last long, thought. Approximately 3.5 seconds later, they’ll be thrilled for that quarterback with the perfect hair and unwavering smile.
Not too long ago, they were the ones hoisting Darnold on their shoulders inside the Vikings locker room.
Work backwards. Signs were there all along.
Go Long is your home for longform in pro football.
Thank you for supporting independent journalism.
This was a satisfying win. All games vs. the Green Bay Packers matter a little bit more. But in the moment? Harrison Smith couldn’t help but wonder why they were going bananas over a regular-season win. After finishing up an interview on the field, Darnold trotted into the home locker room, removed his ball cap and was immediately mobbed. Teammates sprayed him with their water bottles and lifted Darnold atop their shoulders as if he were a conquering hero.
Darnold soaked it all in. He whipped his hat, hollered and danced to their impromptu rendition of 50 Cent’s “Many Men.”
This 32-second moment in time encapsulated exactly what Darnold meant to teammates.
“Honestly, we shouldn’t have gone that crazy,” Smith says. “But it wasn’t because we won. It was just because everyone was happy for Sam and the journey he’d been on. He’s not there to say, ‘I got screwed at whatever organization I was in. I never had a chance.’ He just came in, went to work, mixed it up with all the guys. Everybody had a lot of faith in him. He was very well-liked. We wanted to celebrate Sam. It was all happiness for him.”
Then, poof, it was over. The Vikings were smacked by the Detroit Lions (31-9) in a battle for the NFC’s No. 1 seed, then by the Los Angeles Rams (27-9) in the wild card. Twin beatdowns that compelled the Vikings brass to revert back to their original plan of building around McCarthy and his rookie deal. Minnesota led the NFL in total cash spending at approximately $343 million, splurging on the likes of Will Fries and Ryan Kelly on the offensive line and Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave on the defensive line. In retrospect, head coach Kevin O’Connell and (since fired) GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah should’ve valued those 32 spontaneous seconds more than any meticulously crafted roster construction, any fantasies of a “Nine” takeover and any eyesore sacks from those late-season floggings. I heard that O’Connell even gave Schneider very, very positive reviews on the QB ahead of the signing. Probably not something a coach does if he’s genuinely interested in retaining that QB.
“It wasn’t just Sam not performing in those games,” Smith says. “The team didn’t play well in those games and he didn’t get much help.”
Radio Row can turn into a sewage plant. ‘Tis the season for Can’t Win The Big One narratives. At times, the label absolutely applies. Smith knows there are some quarterbacks who do get skittish in pressure-packed games.
But he’s adamant — that was never the case with Darnold. Which is why the safety loved seeing his ex-teammate shine vs. the Rams in the NFC title game. He rips all backlash Darnold received as “lazy.”
“The reality is, you can learn from experience,” he says. “You don’t have to just fail all the time. Everyone acts like you’re either the worst or you’re the GOAT. All the dumbass shit that people just come up with. They haven’t spent their professional life committed to improving — that’s going to take failure, that’s going to take times where you get beat. And then people drag you because you aren’t the greatest every play. Whoever everyone says is the GOAT — Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods — they all get beat and they all can get embarrassed. It’s just we don’t watch those clips.”
Smith’s voice speeds up with each thought.
We chatted for an hour. He’s most passionate on this topic.
“They were the best because they found ways to improve and use those as fuel. But that’s not sexy. That’s not sexy for us to watch a highlight video or a lowlight video of people just losing and then how they improve upon it. And I think Sam is a good example of a guy that just goes to work and he doesn’t make too big of a deal of anything.”
As linebacker Blake Cashman leapt in that post-Packers mosh pit, part of him did fear the Vikings would lose Darnold in free agency. But only because he figured the Vikings wouldn’t be able to afford him. Cashman expected a 4,319-yards, 35-TD breakout season to vault Darnold into the top income bracket. Darnold was nearly perfect that evening against the Packers and this league is polluted with rancid quarterbacking. Brady himself has often decried the state of the position.
Surely, there was a team out there willing to hand Darnold a blank check.
Cashman has been tight with Darnold since their Jets days together. Their fiancés are friends. He wanted his pal to get paid. Oddly, the market was good. Not great.
“Obviously, I was a little sick to my stomach to see him leave because we were a great team,” Cashman says. “He played phenomenal. And the guys in our locker room, everyone’s thinking: ‘Why wouldn’t you run it back?’”
Players assumed Vikings management could feel what they felt: a quarterback endearing himself to everyone.
To them, a 14-3 season was only the beginning. Darnold was 27 years old. This Vikings franchise has been lost at sea for decades. They’ve tried everything: high draft picks (Culpepper, Ponder, Bridgewater), a hated rival (Favre), a pricey trade (Bradford), a pricey free agent (Cousins), aging talents (Cunningham, George), journeymen (Keenum, Cassel, Frerotte). Thus, the 2025 Vikings were basically a 90s rom com gone wrong. After a million failed dates, The One waltzed right in their building and O’Connell bailed.
Yes, the plan was for Darnold to bridge this team into McCarthy, their 10th overall investment. But plans can change. Or, if you are going to exhaust a full season breaking in McCarthy, maybe you don’t spend more money than any other team in the NFL. Lean into a rebuild. See what he’s got first. Instead, the Vikings represented two conflicting visions and scrapped their way to 9-8.
Cashman understands business is business. Darnold is also the 18th-highest paid quarterback in the NFL. A new contract was manageable.
“If Sam would’ve been returning as our quarterback after the year he had with us,” the linebacker says, “everyone would’ve been happy. Guys loved him, not just as a player, but as a teammate and as well. So we were sad to see him go. We’re happy for him. Of course you think about all the what-ifs.
“We definitely missed him this year. I always tread lightly saying those things because we’ve got J.J. McCarthy, a young quarterback that’s going to take a lot of growth and he didn’t have those chances with his injury his rookie year. I respect J.J. and love the guy, too. But yeah, it would’ve been nice to have a talented veteran quarterback who had previous success with our team and KO.”
Through a magical month of December that 2024 season, players gassed up Darnold in the locker room. Told him he was putting up MVP numbers. All he’d do is credit everyone else. He was humble beyond their comprehension. “A guy,” Cashman adds, “that you love to have in your locker room.” This veteran who’s been through the fire himself understands playoff games are graded on a curve. But how much of a curve? Usually, there are themes to track. Sean McDermott’s defense repeatedly decomposed in January. No coach in NFL history has won more playoff games without a Super Bowl appearance, so Buffalo correctly moved on.
Darnold was sacked nine times and turned it over twice in his loss to L.A.
It was ugly. It was also the first playoff start of his career.
“Teams move on faster from players and coaches and maybe even people in the front office quicker than they should,” Cashman says, “because they think the grass is greener on the other side. But it’s not always that case. And I think teams like us sometimes pay the price for that.”
Naturally, several Vikings players have been rooting for Darnold to succeed from afar. After Seattle blanked Minnesota 26-0 at Lumen Field on Nov. 30, Cashman couldn’t wait to give his friend a bear hug and tell him to win the whole damn thing.
“We all love him. We all respect him,” Cashman says. “And for all the outside noise and all the BS he’s had to deal with, I would love for him to have a Super Bowl win and a Super Bowl MVP to be like, ‘Hey, look, I did the damn thing.’ Nobody’s more deserving than him for that.”
Adds Smith: “It’s good to see him kind of quiet those narratives and I hope it continues.”
These two are far from alone. Elsewhere during Super Bowl Week, star wideout Justin Jefferson was asked by Nick Wright on FS1’s First Thing’s First if he’s still the best receiver in football. “If I don’t have an elite QB throwing me the ball the entire year,” Jefferson said, “then it’s a little bit difficult to be in those conversations.” Running back Aaron Jones told NFL Threads, “When you got a group of guys behind a QB, and he wants to stay, I think you should try to make it work.”
Nobody needs to look too far to see when the world wrote the book on Darnold.
One reason Tom Brady wanted nothing to do Darnold was probably that he was on-hand for the worst night of the QB’s football life. Amid an 11-of-32, four-interception fiasco against those Patriots on Monday Night Football in 2019, ESPN cameras infamously caught Darnold saying he’s “seeing ghosts.”
Uproar was instant. Darnold appeared broken. One primetime game became synonymous with his Jets career.
Nightmare performances this bad, this public can destroy young quarterbacks for good. Nor does Darnold say much of anything during his press conferences. Judging by his shaky play the rest of his Jets career, it was fair to infer one 33-0 drubbing to the Patriots permanently poisoned his psyche.
Cashman was on that ‘19 Jets team. Cashman was with Darnold through all dark days and insists the backlash didn’t affect Darnold. At all.
He kept working. Cashman calls it a “killer mindset.”
“He’s got a strong mental,” Cashman says. “He’s not going to let any outside noise or one bad game shake that self-confidence. When a person carries that kind of conviction, it doesn’t matter what the world will say. It’s not going to disrupt and shake your mindset, confidence, all that.”
“He’s going to do everything in his power to be the best player, best quarterback, and best teammate possible. That’s the type of guy he is.”
One soundbyte that never made it’s way to televisions at home more accurately defined Darnold.
Toward the end of those doomed Jets days, Cashman recalls Darnold suffering a vicious rib/chest injury. They were getting blasted. Another season was cooked. Fresh out of the blue tent, he overheard the Jets’ team doctor and trainers telling Darnold he cannot return to the game. Darnold refused.
“I remember thinking ‘This guy’s a tough son of a bitch,’” Cashman says. “He was like, ‘No F that. I’m staying in. I’m finishing this game.’ That’s the type of toughness and grit your team wants to see. Every coach, every player wants to have a guy like that around. That’s a guy that you want in your foxhole.”
Darnold started 38 games for the Jets. He had ample opportunity to show more in three seasons.
This is also a strange place. Ownership tends to make everything worse here.
As Cashman bluntly asks: “When was the last time a young quarterback had success there?” Post-Darnold, the team’s No. 2 overall pick in 2021 (Zach Wilson) flopped miserably. It’s hard to see the cycle ending any time soon.
Darnold was shipped to Carolina for second- and fourth-round picks. Spurts of hope gave way to injuries, turnovers, more organizational turmoil.
One year as a backup in San Francisco with Kyle Shanahan then prepared him for his Vikings shot.
The only way a quarterback so effortlessly slips through the cracks is if the essence of the man is never fully appreciated. Seahawks GM John Schneider told us what he loves most about Darnold is that he’s no cookie-cutter product straight off the 7-on-7 assembly line. His parents didn’t send him off to football camps. He played tight end and linebacker before switching to QB in high school. After interceptions, Darnold doesn’t throw temper tantrums. He’s a “three-point shooter” who continues to hoist bombs from 25 feet. Schneider saw shades of Brett Favre from his scouting days in Green Bay.
To dig into these roots, I reached out to the man who recruited Darnold.
First, former USC head coach Clay Helton mentions his parents. Darnold’s mother was a middle school PE teacher. His father worked as a medical gas plumber for 30 years. Mike Darnold would wake up at 2:30 a.m., be home at 1 p.m., take a brief nap on the couch, play catch with his son in the yard as soon as he got home from school and then take Sam’s sister to club volleyball practice where he’d stay until 10 p.m. Eat, sleep, repeat. This week, Darnold cited his Dad as his hero.
Helton scored a commitment from Darnold between his junior and senior year at San Clemente (Calif.) High School. Most highly touted quarterbacks graduate early to start spring ball at school.
Not Darnold. An injury had sidelined him on the basketball court as a junior, and he was dying to play with his buddies as a senior. So one day, he called Helton to tell him he wanted to help his basketball team pursue a state title. At point guard, he led his team in points (14.9) and rebounds (8.5) through an undefeated league record.
“It always hit home to me how selfless he is,” Helton says. “He’s just about the moment and about other people around him and he loves being a part of a team.”
In college, Darnold lost a preseason camp battle to Max Browne, took the job the third game of the season and when USC lost to Utah in the final 16 seconds to fall to 1-3, Helton and Darnold walked off the field smiling to each other. They knew what was coming. USC won nine straight games, including the Rose Bowl.
“He’s always been unflappable,” Helton says, “always been the dude.
“He’s done everything with class, with character, and when things are going good? He celebrates others — the people around him,” Helton says. “And when things weren’t going good, he owned it. That’s what a grown man does. That’s what a pro does. He has not changed as a person.”
The two stayed in touch through Darnold’s NFL hardships. Helton never saw his quarterback’s confidence dip.
Fearlessness defines Darnold’s game this 2025 season and fearlessness is what made Darnold one of the nation’s top passers at USC.
It’s nothing he says. Darnold doesn’t verbally call his shot before games. The best way Deontay Burnett — his No. 1 target at USC — can describe this swagger is how quickly the ball arrived at this hands out of a break. Two plays come to mind. One out route vs. Stanford. Burnett took this one to the house for a TD. And on a scramble drill, vs. Texas, Darnold threaded one ball in the back of the end zone vs. tight coverage.
If Darnold thinks you’re open, he’ll give you a chance. There’s zero hesitancy to his game. Remarkable considering virtually all first-rounders who bust with their first team become naturally scared of their own shadow. They’re terrified of the next blunder. And the next. And before they know it, they’re holding a clipboard the rest of their career. Darnold never coiled into this fetal position.
“He’s fearless,” Burnett says. “That’s just who he is. He’s never scared of the moment. He’s always trying to make a big play. A lot of people wrote him off because of how fearless he is. He’s just a gunslinger.
“Sam’s confidence is always out the roof. In his head? When he steps on that field? He can make any throw he wants to.”
Burnett lived it through USC’s Rose Bowl thriller against Penn State in 2016. USC trailed by 14 in the fourth quarter and stormed back to win, 52-49. That Darnold who threw for 453 yards and five touchdowns never disappeared. When the rest of the world redefined him as a bust, he refused to comply. He never lost his quick trigger.
“Sam’s confidence never wavers,” Burnett says. “It was always there. That’s who he is. He always just wanted to make a play and once you have that instilled in you, it’s hard to lose because that’s what kept him going — knowing that he could make these type of throws. And it just carried on to now. He has a good supporting cast around him.”
That’s the final lesson worth repeating. If Jets Life is quarterback hell, Seattle has been heaven.
Darnold has it all: a playcaller who mirrors his aggressiveness, an offensive line that gives him time, an elite wide receiver in Jaxon Smith-Njigba who won offensive player of the year and an organization that believes. Quarterbacks spent more time with their coaches than their wives and fiancés from August to January. Until Schneider’s trade, Seahawks QBs coach Andrew Janocko and Darnold didn’t even know each other. Not that it mattered. It took no time for these two to hit it off. Both possess the same dry sense of humor.
Quickly, the two found themselves laughing at the same dumb idiosyncrasies of life that go over peoples’ heads. Both love “The Office.”
Says Janocko: “There’s never a ‘that’s what she said’ that goes unnoticed in our room.”
Darnold and backup QB Drew Lock quote Michael Scott all the time. Even rookie Jalen Milroe is catching up fast. But recently, Janocko was stunned to hear Darnold has never watched Christmas Vacation. That’s the quarterback’s lone assignment after this whole Super Bowl thing. Janocko cannot understand how anyone goes through life without experiencing this movie.
On the field, he views Darnold’s resiliency as a source of inspiration for anyone in any profession.
Game to game, he lives it firsthand. After throwing two interceptions against the Rams in Week 16, Darnold showed no emotion and calmly led Seattle back from a 16-point deficit in the fourth quarter. If he makes a play, you’ll get a fist pump and little more. If he screws up, whatever. This isn’t a revenge tour. The two have not relitigated those Jets or Vikings days at all.
Janocko doesn’t get the sense that Darnold is out to prove anyone wrong in Santa Clara.
“I think honestly, he just wants to do things for his teammates,” Janocko says. “He wants the guys around him to succeed. And that’s one of the coolest things him. He drives the engine, but it’s to bring everybody else along too and wants to see their success.”
This is what Vikings players miss most. Darnold played for the right reasons.
The team’s plan to build around a rookie quarterback contract might’ve been logical, but everything about Darnold’s career arc is illogical. O’Connell stumbled upon a franchise guy by accident and could’ve had him at a discounted rate compared to what others at the position make. Even the sport’s best quarterback gurus can miss. Nobody’s in O’Connell’s position without an ego. But now the 40-year-old head coach must decide exactly how much he believes in McCarthy.
All while watching that quarterback his players lifted into the air compete for a ring.
This is a mentally draining position. When Harrison Smith hears quarterbacks discussing plays in the locker room, some are a paragraph long. (“That’s getting out of hand.”) The list of passers who can handle those demands on top of being tarred ‘n feathered through “Seeing Ghosts” calamities is short. Darnold was always more fearless than anyone realized.
En route to Levi’s Stadium, he leaves a trail of regret in his path.
All teams have several weeks to chart a plan.
Tom Brady and the Raiders hope Darnold’s coordinator in Seattle, Klint Kubiak, can work magic with likely No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza. Bare minimum, O’Connell and the Vikings must find real competition for McCarthy. Dream scenario, they’re able to work some midnight inception on Mike Brown and convince the Bengals owner to trade them Joe Burrow for a bundle of first-round picks. Carolina must decide whether or not Bryce Young is worth a long-term contract extension. The Jets are forever Charlie Kelly in the mailroom with a cigarette hanging from their mouth.
For now, they’ll watch Darnold compete against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX. The viewing experience may be painful, but even Brady must admit it’s impossible not to pull for this quarterback on a human level. Kids across America can learn something from Darnold’s last eight seasons.
If Seattle wins? Those Vikings players will undoubtedly wish they’re the ones with a chance to douse their quarterback in champagne. FOMO will rage.
But above all, players will beam with joy.
“When you live the right way,” Cashman says, “do the right things, and you’re a great person, great teammate, great leader, that patience and all that continuous work ethic, you’re going to be rewarded for that.
“That’s exactly what’s happening right now.”
Super Bowl LX links:
Rare Hawks: Why Ty Okada & Jake Bobo embody the Seattle Seahawks
Pod: SI’s Conor Orr on Super Bowl LX & Ahman Green on the Green Bay Packers
Q&A: Seahawks QB coach Andrew Janocko on the ‘resiliency’ of Sam Darnold
Real Football: Seattle Seahawks-New England Patriots Super Bowl LX Preview!
Carlton Davis: ‘I feel like it’s going to be another surprise win’
Southern Comfort: Patriots’ gator-huntin’ rookie Will Campbell is 1 of 1
‘It’s incredible:’ Super Bowl LX’s roots are in Ron Wolf’s Green Bay Packers
Pod: Stevie Johnson has a PSA for Buffalo Bills WR Keon Coleman!
Best Super Bowl storyline? Terrell Williams is cancer-free, back on the Patriots sideline
1 on 1: Seahawks GM John Schneider on Packers roots, Sam Darnold, building a winner (again)
Good read, Tyler. I wasn't aware of Brady's resistance of Sam. I too, will be rooting for this underdog tonight.
Your story of Darnold's perseverance and Raiders owner Brady's fumble has given me even more reason to cheer for Seattle over NE in the SB. Remarkable that Sam's already surpassed Josh, Lamar and Baker as being the first in their draft class to play in the big game.