5 most important players in Seahawks-Rams

Sam Darnold's out to prove that the Vikings lost to the Rams, not just him.

The Rams are partly responsible for the Vikings not re-signing Sam Darnold, so will Darnold make L.A. regret the abuse they laid on him and his supporting cast that led to his arrival with the Seahawks for what could be 10 to 20 more matchups in the future?

It’s the 5 most important players in Seahawks-Rams.

QB Sam Darnold, Seahawks

The NFL has a serious quarterback problem — aside from Drake Maye, most guys coming into the league over the last five years aren’t very good — so the fact that the league couldn’t find a way to feature a game with arguably the two best of 2025 is a huge screw-up in my opinion.

At Next Gen Stats, Darnold and Stafford are ranked 1-2 in EPA (estimated points added) per dropback. Darnold leads the league in yards per attempt, Stafford has 25 TD/2 INT. In the second half, Stafford has amassed 14 TD/0 INT through nine games.

But as important as it is for Seattle to have an answer for Stafford, this weekend is far more about Darnold and his need to avenge his last game with the Vikings.

The Vikings only lost to two teams with Darnold last season and they lost to both of them twice: Lions and Rams.

Now, if Darnold had a bad game against L.A. in the playoffs and won, he might still be in Minnesota. Isn’t that funny? If he had played worse but the team played better, the media would have hailed Darnold as a “winner”.

Instead, Darnold was blamed for the Vikings last two losses, as in entirely blamed, and now he’s on the Seahawks; It’s a good thing that his team DIDN’T play better!

After the game, Dan Orlovsky said that Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula simply copied Detroit’s gameplan from the previous week by double-teaming Justin Jefferson on every play.

“All Shula really did was copy Aaron Glenn. The Lions DC laid the blueprint, Jefferson was double-teamed more than he was open. Number two, Minnesota’s offensive line got absolutely demolished by the Rams defensive line, which is the best young defensive line in football. And three, Kevin O’Connell got out-coached.”

From this perspective, the Seahawks have to think about a few things:

• What’s Plan B if Jaxon Smith-Njigba isn’t open?

• How much protection help does Darnold need besides the 5 OL?

• What did Klint Kubiak learn from O’Connell’s mistakes?

To say that this is a “revenge game” for Darnold after getting sacked nine times in the wild card is a bit of a misleading narrative. Darnold’s actual revenge would be against Minnesota, wouldn’t it? He got sacked nine times and blamed for the loss!

Even so, the rest of Darnold’s season narrative will be dictated by how he plays against the Rams this week and whether or not the Seahawks win or at least competitive. Stafford’s going to be Stafford regardless of the outcome, so most of the pressure will be on Darnold and Kubiak to prove that they’re better than Kevin O’Connell and…Sam Darnold. The imposter one.

TE Davis Allen, Rams

Probably not a name you expected to see and that’s if you’ve ever heard of Davis Allen. You may not have, but Allen is the only tight end on the Rams roster who plays in 100% of McVay’s special 13 personnel formation.

Terrance Ferguson has a higher ceiling as a receiver. Tyler Higbee is the old dog. Colby Parkinson is the blocking vet. We might see just a tad more from Allen than all of them.

Allen plays more snaps than Parkinson (45% to 35%) and way more than Ferguson (17%) but that could be changing as McVay gets comfortable with his rookie. That being said, Ferguson had some horrific whiffs on targets last week. He’s a work in progress.

A fifth round pick out of Clemson in 2023 (the Rams picked him even before they picked Puka Nacua), Allen is 6’6, 251 lbs, and should have a long NFL career. He had caught 13 passes for 104 yards this season and that’s with him having to share a role with three other guys.

Allen has been targeted at least once in every game this season and most recently he caught a touchdown against the 49ers last week, his third. A week earlier, Allen had a career-high 4 targets against the Saints.

Really this is more of what Allen represents: A heavy dose of 13 personnel and McVay’s insistance to show you “Puka and Davante Adams” in his left hand while he steals your wallet with his right hand.

Nine different players on the Rams have at least 100 receiving yards this season, which is even more surprising when you consider that almost every pass goes to Puka or Adams. Almost every pass.

Everything Matthew Stafford and McVay do is pretty damn efficient, so whether it’s Davis Allen or someone else, Seattle’s going to have their “hands” full.

K Harrison Mevis, Rams

This is the Rams kicker:

Mevis is 245 lbs and dubbed “Thiccer Kicker” and he didn’t make his NFL debut until last week. An All-American at Mizzou, but his accurate took a little tumble after that season and he went undrafted in 2024. Mevis spent a year in the UFL and went 21-of-23 with a long of 56.

As unusual as it is to see a kicker who weighs as much as a linebacker, I can’t really think of a single reason it would matter? I mean, it’s kicker. Maybe the extra weight actually helps him; Mevis made a 61-yarder in college to beat K-State at the buzzer. It’s the longest field goal in SEC history.

The real matter here is how L.A. came to switch kickers midseason: Joshua Karty has not been cut and Sean McVay insists that he won’t be released despite losing his job as the kicker. However, the Rams have had horrendous issues on special teams, including on field goals, as Karty has had three kicks blocked and has missed eight in total, including PATs.

Mevis went 6-of-6 on PATs in his debut last week, which is more than Karty has ever had in a single game.

The Rams didn’t try any field goals so we haven’t seen Mevis make an attempt there yet, but this game figures to be close which is where special teams comes in as a vital component. Is Mevis the kicker of the Rams’ dreams…or a new nightmare?

G Grey Zabel, Seahawks

Fans usually obsess over the question “How is the first round pick doing???” but that doesn’t really seem to be the case when the player in question is a guard or a center. In my experience this season, fans either assume that Zabel must be doing great or they absorb all the positivity and ignore/deflect any negativity.

The positive isn’t hard to do with Zabel because every other week there seems to be a new breakdown video or a stat like “zero pressures allowed!” that would lead us to believe he’s ahead of schedule. That does not mean there isn’t any negativity.

Namely in the one thing that nobody seems to be able to measure at all: Run blocking.

I can’t sit here and tell you that I know how good of a run blocker Zabel is relative to all the guards in the NFL. I can’t do that and I’m not going to lie to you and pretend that I can. I know what you know which is that the Seahawks aren’t a great run blocking team. We know that.

PFF thinks that Zabel is having such a bad season as a run blocker that his overall grade is worse than Anthony Bradford’s.

(link courtesy John Gilbert.)

Isn’t it funny how I disagree with the Zabel grade but wanna agree with the good ones for Cross and Lucas?

We’ve never had a conversation about Zabel’s rookie season and how it’s going. We probably don’t need to have that conversation today either. Still, when you take the importance of this game against the Rams + the change at center + Zabel’s matchup against a very good defensive line + the need to run against the Rams, these talks about how much better Seattle’s interior OL got this season will only become more frequent.

The Seahawks rank 22nd in yards per carry on runs between the tackles, which doesn’t seem that bad all things considered. They’re 21st in success rate on those plays, which is even better than the Eagles.

Moreover, Seattle is averaging 1.09 yards before contact on runs inside the tackles, which is ranked 15th, implying the G/C/G is doing OK at least.

The Rams feature a defensive line with former Seahawk Poona Ford, as well as Kobie Turner and Braden Fiske. L.A. has a top-5 run defense by almost any measure (as do the Seahawks) so this is as good of a test for Zabel as any.

PFF grades may be off, but in this game Zabel can’t be.

S Coby Bryant, Seahawks

One of the most fascinating things about the NFL is how quickly the names change year to year, and sometimes week to week. As opposed to the NBA, where if you told me that Rasheed Wallace still played in the NBA I’d take a second to think about if I believe that or not. (For perspective, LeBron James was drafted the same year that the Sonics took Nick Collison.)

“I was once was Love, but now I’m Ty.”

Of all the possible timelines of how this season could have turned out for Seattle’s defense, names like Ty Okada, Drake Thomas, and Josh Jobe have not just filled in but in some cases outplayed their counterparts. Guys who we thought were just competing for the last spot on the 53 might instead still be starting for the Seahawks in 2026.

And that’s not necessarily the timeline that’s good for Coby Bryant.

As much as I’ve attempted to dissuade people who read this newsletter from expecting Bryant to be back next year, simply due to the fact that safeties almost always leave their teams in free agency, he has been flying to the ball lately. Most importantly, he hasn’t been missing tackles like he was in the first month.

Bryant’s 582 snaps is the fifth-most in the entire league among the teams who have had nine games so far. It’s 106 more snaps than anyone else on Seattle’s defense! (Danno, maybe you were right about those injuries.) So his importance to Macdonald can’t be overstated due to the simple fact that in a season lacking consistent availability, Bryant is a constant.

Now I do not think that he’s one of the best safeties in the league. The way that Seahawks fans feel about Bryant is the same as how fans of other teams feel about Talanoa Hufanga or Nick Cross or Tykee Smith or Josh Metellus or Quentin Lake or Jalen Pitre…the list goes on. That’s why safeties change teams so often.

I mean, just look how much ground he’s lost in the public consciousness to Ty Okada!

But I can sense Coby Bryant having a huge impact in this game. He’s one of Seattle’s best ball hawks and Stafford is overdue for an interception. Throwing those passes deep middle or up the seam to his tight ends, maybe that’s where one gets away from him and Bryant (or Okada) take advantage.

It’s not necessarily going to change Bryant’s timeline, but would redirect the trajectory of the NFC West title race.

Seaside Joe 2448