Sam slams are sham scams

Does the media actually watch Sam Darnold or check his game logs or do analysts always have to use narratives as a crutch?

“Let’s start with lawyers in criminal cases before a jury, which is the only area of the law I feel I’m qualified to talk about. I start out with the assumption that a lawyer in a criminal case is going to be incompetent, substantially so. I find my assumption to be rarely wrong. Yet society starts out with the very opposite assumption. I happen to know society is wrong, dead wrong.

Incompetence is rampant in our society. It’s so common that I expect it, and when I find competence, I am always pleasantly surprised.” - Vincent Bugliosi, from his book “Outrage”.

Bugliosi successfully prosecuted Charles Manson and won 105/106 felony jury trials in his career (a 99.05 winning percentage is Hall of Fame worthy) so if he says that most of society’s “experts” are actually incompetent, and the theory also aligns with what I consume every day in media about the NFL, I tend to believe it.

Does anyone do research anymore?

We’ve heard it for the last 10 days and we’ll hear it many more times until the Super Bowl kicks off: “Sam Darnold is erratic, untrustworthy, and turnover prone.”

Tom Thayer summed it up for ESPN Chicago this week by saying “You don’t know what Darnold is going to do. Is he going to have one of those games where he blows up and moves the ball or one of those games where he blows up and throws interceptions?”

You and I may disagree with that (or you might agree) but I am glad he said it because that’s what almost every analyst has been repeating all season and so that’s the only accepted narrative on Darnold.

Narratives. Take out the “rats” and what are you left with? Naive.

Let’s just compare Darnold to the other Super Bowl quarterback Drake Maye and test this theory of “erraticism”. (Not to be confused with a late night Cinemax movie.)

• In 20 starts, including playoffs, Maye has thrown an interception in 10 different games

• In 19 starts, Darnold has thrown an interception in 9 games

• Maye has had a fumble in 8 games

• Darnold has had a fumble in 9 games

On the balance of things, Darnold has actually thrown an interception in a lower percentage of his starts than Maye and had a fumble in a higher percentage of starts, meaning that the two quarterbacks are just as likely to cough up the ball PER GAME as one another. You could also argue that interceptions are more costly and more due to poor QB play than fumbles, and you would win that argument.

There is the matter of multiple interceptions, right? Darnold has three games with multiple interceptions, including one with four, and Maye has not had a single game with multiple picks. Check, Maye?

Not so fast: Maye has had 7 games with one pick and at least one fumble compared to only 3 such games for Darnold. Against superior defenses in the postseason compared to his regular season schedule, Maye’s been his own worst enemy and completing only 55% of his attempts with 15 sacks, six fumbles, and two picks.

I’ll be a Maye defender (not to be confused with the Netflix movie May December) when it’s time to be a Maye defender, but we can’t lose sight of today’s assignment:

Destroying the narrative that Seattle’s got a QB problem, not New England. If either of the two quarterbacks is more likely to implode on Sunday, the actual facts point to it being Maye.

(Yes, Chase Daniel has about 3 pictures of himself that he uses for EVERY thumbnail.)

We could go a step further in favor of the Patriots QB and note that Maye’s interception rate per attempt is 1.6% and Darnold’s is a significantly higher 2.9%. And yet I’m just as capable of pushing that narrative way back in favor of Darnold by pointing out that New England faced by far the easiest schedule of defenses in the entire league and Darnold faced one of the toughest schedules for a quarterback in recent times.

The Patriots will be the 15th team that Darnold has faced with 8+ wins this season, tying the record for the most ever in a single season (The Seahawks are 11-3 in those games). Darnold also threw six of his interceptions against the Rams — the second-best team in the NFL — and only eight interceptions in the other 15 games.

Tasked with facing his demons in the NFC Championship to reach the Super Bowl, Darnold had one of those “blow up and move the ball games” against the Rams. He didn’t do it against the Bears. He didn’t do it against the 49ers. Or any of the other bottom-10 pass defenses that made the playoffs. He did it against the team that “the narratives” said he couldn’t do it against.

Which leads me back to wonder…just which games is Thayer (and everyone else) pointing to as Darnold’s games when he “blows up” and throws an interception on every other pass?

• He had one very bad 4-pick loss to the Rams

• And…?

His second-worst start of the season, a two-pick outing against the Rams, ended with Darnold throwing an impossible ball to A.J. Barner in the fourth quarter, a touchdown to JSN in overtime, and the game-winning two-pointer to Eric Saubert.

I’m not turning into a mega-Sam apologist, I just want to make sure that these unchecked national media narratives don’t remain untested on some sacred ground of “B-b-but we saw him suck on the Jets and remember last year’s last two games on the V-v-vikings?”

I already did this recount once before, I’m not going to do the entire thing again, but what about Darnold going against THIS MIKE MACDONALD DEFENSE in Week 16 as a Viking last year and throwing 3 TD with a game-winner to Justin Jefferson? Or 377 yards and 3 TD against the Packers the next week?

In the seven games prior to losing to the Lions in the finale, Darnold had 18 touchdowns and two picks against a schedule that was sort of challenging; with all due respect, more challenging than New England’s entire 2025 schedule

When we have FREE sites like Pro-Football-Reference but a subscription to Stathead only costs $80 per year, a site that I use many times every day, there are no excuses for highly-paid analysts to INSIST on basing all of their Super Bowl talking points on narratives from the past that “must be true ‘cause i ‘member it that way.”

I liked this breakdown by Derek Carr for a number of reasons but especially because he actually played for Klint Kubiak last year:

This is my message to the media, and the fans, and the fans parading as media, and the media parading as competent experts who just say what they think fans want to hear (like a good example in 2026 would be, “Sam bad, Caleb Williams good” even though in actuality Sam good and Caleb bad) because more than anything else “experts” are human beings DESPERATE TO BE ACCEPTED AND LOVED by fans:

We have to come to an agreement on a shared reality and not simply grab onto the lowest branches for fruit, even if it means we have to do a little bit more work than the absolute minimum level of competence.

A shared reality means facts. And these facts do not support your narratives.

The last thing I’ll say on this:

Either quarterback could have a bad game in the Super Bowl. Both quarterbacks could struggle. Or neither of them could struggle.

There’s no “gotcha” moment coming for Seaside Joe if Sam Darnold throws three interceptions in the Super Bowl because that’s a risk every quarterback has to face when they get to the highest level. Peyton Manning threw 25 interceptions in 27 career playoff games and Seahawks fans know he got his ass kicked in the Super Bowl. Tom Brady regularly failed to complete 60% of his passes in half of his postseason appearances and he averaged almost one pick per playoff game.

Brady and Manning are elite “all-time” quarterbacks and they were often far from perfect. Their playoff performances were consistently worse than what they did in the regular season against generally lesser teams.

But if we had to qualify Darnold and Maye as relative equals, then what’s the denominator that is NOT common?

Darnold is facing a good defense. Maye is facing a great defense.

I doubt we’ll see much incompetence in the Super Bowl. Not the level we’ve seen in the two weeks leading up to it.

Don Ellis: I think this might be a historic game in that I don't believe there has even been a Super Bowl led by both head coaches with 2 years or less time with their teams. Is my read on this accurate?

I’ll start by saying that Mike Vrabel is the eighth coach to reach the Super Bowl in his first year with a team. The previous seven went 4-3 in the Super Bowl.

In that group is both Jon Gruden and Bill Callahan for the 2002 Bucs-Raiders Super Bowl, so no, it would not be the first time for coaches in their first two years.

Mike Macdonald is attempting to become the 13th head coach to win the Super Bowl within his first two seasons with a team. The last was Bruce Arians with the Bucs in 2020.

Lou Slugger: I agree with you Ken that the Seahawks will probably go with an internal hire for OC, but there are still some interesting external candidates out there. Mike Kafka took a lesser job in Detroit so he could interview. Any external OC candidates that are at least worth a look now that the dust has settled a little on coaching hires?

The only “bad move” the Seahawks could make at OC would be to stick to the plan they made last year without being open to other considerations. That’s how you wind up with Jim Mora Jr. replacing Mike Holmgren.

The Seahawks could evaluate all their options and come to the conclusion that “yes, our best move continues to be to promote from within” and maybe that’s Jake Peetz or Andrew Janocko or someone else. That’s all fine.

Me personally, I don’t care what they do because it’s kind of foolish to predict a good hire and a bad hire. If they said that Rick Dennison was going to be the next OC that would be very underwhelming and poorly received, but it might also work out great. If the Seahawks said that they had stolen Nate Scheelhaase (highly-regarded young pass game coordinator of the Rams) that move would get A+++ grades…and could still be a spectacular flop.

Fans with zero insight into a coach who also by the way has no track record as a play caller: “Ah an under-35 name I’m hearing for the first time, you say??? Genius!!!”

Sean Mannion was on the Seahawks practice squad a couple of seasons ago. He’s the Eagles OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR now. Maybe that’ll be the coaching move of the year. Experience is probably somewhat overrated.

And for that reason and many others, coaching hires are probably bigger crapshoots than the draft. I mean, look no further than the coordinator Seattle needs to replace:

Klint Kubiak was highly regarded as some kind of coach before the season started, but even just within the last few weeks his reputation has taken off to heights that few expected and some exclaiming that the Raiders will IMMEDIATELY go from 32nd in offense to a top-10 offense overnight and do so with a rookie quarterback.

I’m not even saying that won’t happen. I’m saying that Kubiak had to overcome his head coach being fired in 3 of the previous 4 seasons including a disastrous offensive season on the Saints.

And speaking of overcoming disasters:

Mike Kafka was calling plays for the Giants for a couple of years, then Brian Daboll revoked those duties from him in 2024. Daboll gave back play calling duties to Kafka in 2025 and then Daboll got fired midseason. Kafka interviewed to be the OC for the Lions and the Bucs, both coveted play calling roles based on the promotions for previous coaches like Ben Johnson, Dave Canales, and Liam Coen.

I am not aware of any intention on Kafka’s part to be intentionally passed over for those jobs so that he could interview for different OC jobs or Seattle’s, if it even came available.

The Seahawks may have liked Kafka as a head coach more than as a play caller. For the most part, there’s nothing glowing on Kafka’s actual resume as a play caller.

I’m not sure there would be a reason to favor Mike Kafka over an internal promotion unless John Schneider’s personal homework on Kafka had him so impressed that he was just waiting for this very moment when a transition was possible. (It wasn’t possible last year, if I recall correctly.)

Rusty: Aaaaand now that we know the NFL did NOT fine the Seahawks $5 Million for not selling the team (per Goodell), how likely do you think it is this story was “planted” by Robert Kraft?

Just going to be honest, I don’t follow that news at all.

The sale of the team is meaningful in the grand scheme of things, but totally meaningless to me until the season is over, which I’m going to believe is also true for everybody working on the Super Bowl right now. I don’t think there’s any chance that anyone of any importance to the game cared about that news when it quickly came and went last week.

Cavmax: I would love to see Q Diggs playing in the 4th quarter. That would also mean a blow out. That NFC Championship celebration was pretty spectacular. It felt like we had won the Super bowl already! How will the Super bowl celebration top that?

Unfortunately, I don’t foresee Quandre Diggs being on the active game day roster. He would need to be elevated from the practice squad, but given that he hasn’t appeared in a game since November 30th, that doesn’t look to be in the plans.

The Seahawks did activate Chazz Surratt from injured reserve on Tuesday, setting him up for his first game since November 23rd.

Seattle had some surprising scratches last time, including Robbie Ouzts, Elijah Arroyo (who was activated from IR), and Velus Jones (who was elevated from the practice squad the day before), so there may be another surprise this weekend in that regard.

More Super Joes Q&A answers to come! It’s not too late to upgrade and get yours in!

Seaside Joe 2528