Sam Darnold shouldn't be the star
Seahawks-49ers isn't about big names, it's about short runs
Many fans want their favorite football team to revolve around the quarterback, which makes sense because it’s a very “orbital” sport: I’ve always though that football is basically an individual sport wrapped inside of a team sport which is what makes it so fascinating to watch.
How does this guy who makes the majority of the plays respond to the various levels of chaos around him?
But what if you were a golf coach and instead of trying to make your golfer better, you just worked on adding more and more hazards to the course for everyone else in the tournament? If a golfer had a free -1 stroke on every hole, they’d never lose.
Well, golf may not have “coaches” exactly but the Seahawks do and Mike Macdonald is far more of a star on this version of Seattle’s team than Sam Darnold is. Maybe one day that will change but today the version of Darnold that the Seahawks need is one who usually isn’t the star.
And that’s okay. It’s good, actually!
I’ll get to more of that in today’s part III of the Super Joes Q&A. But first, a two-part poll question:
I wonder how much your answers change when the question changes a little bit.
I’ll post the answers on Friday.
Here are the remaining questions from this week’s Super Joes Q and A. Join the rapidly expanding Q and A newsletter by upgrading today!
Beezo: I am confident our D will hold the 49ers to 20 or less points. With that frame, these are my Q’s:
-Will those 20 points come from long sustained, dunk & dunk yards, that changes the time of possession and forces our O to do things we’d rather they don’t?
-How long can CMC hold up out there, he is getting used a lot?
-Were the 49ers that great against the Eagles?
What would allow the 49ers to score 20 points against the Seahawks? A defensive touchdown. Three turnovers by Seattle. If the Niners score 20 offensive points on Saturday, it’s a fluke.
The Seahawks allowed 3 offensive touchdowns four times:
Bucs in Week 5 (13 points allowed following turnovers or missed FG)
Cardinals in Week 10 (Seattle had 3 turnovers)
Rams in Week 11 (Seattle had 4 turnovers)
Rams in Week 16 (Seattle had 3 turnovers)
There’s no logical path for the Niners to score 20+ points against Seattle’s defense. If that happens, we’ve been knocked off of our timeline into an alternate universe from a comet passing through earth’s atmosphere.
Tampa Bay might be the only team all year that had a credible 20 points against the Seahawks and the defense: didn’t have DeMarcus Lawrence, Devon Witherspoon, or Julian Love; Nick Emmanwori just returned; Drake Thomas hadn’t fully taken over for Tyrice Knight yet; Riq Woolen still wasn’t fully with the program.
Both of Baker Mayfield’s touchdown passes were on Nehemiah Pritchett!
So where will 20 points come from? I don’t know…outer space? It wouldn’t make any sense. (49ers film study for the interested:)
Brock Purdy likes to throw the ball downfield and the Seahawks took away his ability to do that in Week 18. Both quarterbacks were under 5.0 average depth of target but it doesn’t matter so much for Seattle because a) the Niners don’t have a great run defense, b) the Seahawks have a great run defense, c) Seattle has JSN running routes against secondary players who wouldn’t crack Mike Macdonald’s lineup.
Maybe the Christian McCaffrey hype doesn’t affect me because I don’t play fantasy football. I give him his credit, he’s the modern version of what a Hall of Fame running back looks like in 2026, but McCaffrey hasn’t done anything against Seattle this year. Nothing.
His 30 carries (92 yards) against the Seahawks:
4 carries gained negative yardage (13.3%)
6 carries gained 0-1 yards (20%)
5 carries gained 2 yards (16.6%)
5 carries gained 3 yards (16.6%)
6 carries gained 4-6 yards (20%)
3 carries gained 9 yards (10%)
1 carry gained 10+ yards (it went for 13 yards)
McCaffrey doesn’t have a single carry against the Seahawks this season with the lead. Not one.
Six of his carries went for a first down but all six were in Week 1. Two of his longest carries against Seattle came with 16+ yards to go for a first down. He’s been stuffed on third-and-short twice.
Compare that to Kenneth Walker, who has 4 carries of 10+ yards against the Niners, including a 20-yarder and 19 yards on third-and-17. Walker is averaging 1.5 more yards per carry against SF than McCaffrey against Seattle, but the focus is always on McCaffrey. Which I understand because he’s a big star, I’m just saying it actually doesn’t make sense when it’s these two teams:
Walker is more likely to make an impact in this game than McCaffrey.
Zach Charbonnet has two 10+ yard carries against the 49ers, including a 27-yard touchdown. Charbonnet has 7 first down runs against San Francisco, more than McCaffrey….he’s not even the featured back!
McCaffrey has caught 15 passes in two games and four of those have gone for a first down; three of those were in Week 1. One of Purdy’s passes was intercepted by Drake Thomas when McCaffrey couldn’t handle a deflected pass.
How much of a workload can he handle? I’m sure he can handle 22-25 touches again. And assuming the Seahawks will play defense like they have against him the first two games though, I hope he gets 30 touches.
Were the 49ers that great against the Eagles? I’m not an ideal expert for that question probably, but if you’re calling up touchdown passes from your WR1 (Seattle’s been there before recently) and he might look better than the QB then maybe not. I don’t think so. What did readers out there think of the 49ers in their last game?
Beezo: Side question unrelated to the playoff game, are the Eagles the new post SB Seahawks? A team with great players, so they keep winning, but the wins are not convincing, there is something unspoken/unseen holding the team back. So they will slowly die, year over year, staying the mix, being a tough beat in regular season, but never truly a playoff threat.
To Philadelphia’s credit, they weren’t afraid to fire Doug Pederson three years after winning the Super Bowl. Nick Sirianni is on the hot seat in 2026. So maybe the Eagles will be quicker to react to their mediocrity and bounce back sooner, but it’s an interesting comparison that you’re making. I think their salary cap commitments via signing bonuses are a problem.
The Giants hiring John Harbaugh this week also probably makes New York the new favorites to win the NFC East next season.
Paul G: The regulars on a popular Seahawks podcast have opined that the Bears are frauds and will lose decisively to the Rams. Maybe so. But I have to wonder about a team that, with the #1 seed in its grasp, lost to two 8-9 teams and collapsed against their most formidable opponent. Throw in that they were lucky to win a playoff game in which they were heavily favored and then engaged in some of the most unmerited post-game woofing that I’ve ever heard, and I start to wonder who the greater fraud is. Is it wishful thinking in my part, or are the Rams overrated? Can the Bears upset them?
Aside from win totals I see little difference between the Bears and some 6-11 teams out there except for the fact that Chicago made a few extra plays at the end of games—sometimes very lucky plays—and so they have a better record despite a defense ranked bottom-5 against both the run and the pass.
Do I think the Bears are better than the Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes or the Bengals with Joe Burrow? Maybe equals. Are they better than the Cowboys or the Lions or the Dolphins? Maybe equals.
I’d give the Lions a much greater shot to beat the Rams this weekend than I’m giving Chicago because the Bears are just not a good team. I won’t say they’re a bad team, but they are the worst defense left in the playoffs and Caleb Williams is the worst quarterback left in the playoffs.
Can the Bears go on a run similar to the 2021 Bengals? Sure! It’s the playoffs!
But to answer your question of frauds:
I’d say the Bears are a mediocre team playing above their heads
the Rams are a good team that’s been struggling on the road recently and getting a taste of turnover regression.
There’s no real advantage that the Bears have in this game (their greatest asset could be Ben Johnson and the Rams aren’t lacking in good coaches either) aside from being at home in the freezing cold. By all means, you can hope that I’m wrong because if Seattle advances and they get to host the Bears in the NFC Championship that’s a rare postseason gift.
Bob: With the Niners backups at LB, will we see K9 and Charb hitting between the tackles more? I predict our run game is going to pound'm into paste on saturday.
Folds into some of the stats I shared earlier and I agree that the Seahawks should be able to lean on the ground game. Klint Kubiak isn’t afraid to go in that direction despite Seattle ranking 25th in yards per carry.
The Seahawks have the fourth-fewest rushing yards for teams that have at least 500 rushing attempts in the 17-game era:
Why 14 wins then?
It helps when you’re 2nd in NY/A on offense, 2nd in NY/A allowed on defense, and 1st in YPC allowed on defense.
The 49ers haven’t been able to stop the run yet so why not keep doing that?
Rusty: What does Sam Darnold have to do to get any respect from national media? Because going 20-26 with the #1 seed on the line didn’t do it.
I get that it doesn’t matter in the locker room…and it shouldn’t. But as a raging Seahawks fan…it pisses me off!
Well, Sam Darnold isn’t the star of the Seahawks. Objectively, he’s not the star, he’s the quarterback. The way that the Bills, Patriots, and Rams funnel most of their touchdowns through the quarterback and they’re heavily reliant on those scores, Seattle and Darnold aren’t in that position. Josh Allen has scored multiple touchdowns in twice as many games (14 to 7) as Darnold.
Which isn’t something to be mad about. The Seahawks are the most complete team. Wouldn’t fans rather have that than a star quarterback? (Imagine if it’s a Seahawks-Texans or Seahawks-Broncos Super Bowl…teams on equal ground for QB star power really.)
What does Darnold need to do this week to get more positive attention from the media? Probably throw 3-4 touchdowns against the 49ers, which isn’t likely going to happen…because it’s just not necessary.
Seattle isn’t going to do anything unnecessary to try and get their quarterback a touchdown in the playoffs. We’ve seen that story before.
Darnold has 9 TD/9 INT in his last nine games (Steven Ruiz wrote a somewhat positive article about Darnold this week and pointed out what’s causing his second half dip) and I think in a fantasy/gambling age stats like TD:INT get more attention than just doing what’s necessary at the quarterback position. Darnold may not score more than once this Saturday and that may also be exactly what the Seahawks need.
I can’t see the 49ers offense going toe to toe with our defense. For them to score 3 TDs, they’re going to need three trick/gimmick plays like the razzle dazzle Jennings TD throw against the Eagles, and they’re all going to have to work and not blow up in their face. That’s unlikely, and I’m sure Mm is going to preach discipline to prevent a coverage breakdown and keep that from beating us.
On offense, I expect the run game to continue its success, and I expect Darnold to hit one or two truly explosive pass plays. The SF defense is going to have to stop the run and will sacrifice with a heavy box and single high safety. Shaheed on one side, JSN on the other, one of them or both is going to win and the safety will have to pick one side, Sam just needs 2.7 seconds to make two reads.
I stand by my assessment the Seahawks win by a minimum of 17, as they should have done in week 18. The only way it’s less than 17 is if Lock is the QB in the 4th quarter and the 2nd team defense give up a meaningless late game score.
Sorry...Devils Advocate and such...these are NFL teams and are capable of putting up points. It's probably not likely, but I wouldn't go as to say it's not possible. We gotta go play good clean ball and be thankful we're not going against their full roster. We've been on s collision course with the rams for most of the season, I would be so disappointed not to play them with the stakes as high as possible. We need to send the message and the NFC Championship is the best place to do it. Begaw!