Seahawks learning ‘unflappable’ Sam Darnold. So what is the quarterback’s why?
Sam Darnold is all about love.
Love of football, that is.
Some guys play to make it in the NFL. Say what you will about his performances over his career as a discarded first-round draft pick by the New York Jets, then to Carolina, Carolina, San Francisco, Minnesota, now Seattle. Darnold has made it in the NFL.
The Seahawks quarterback has earned over $102 million in what is now his eighth season in the league. Though he’s been with Seattle for only two games, the team has given him more than a third of his career earnings. The Seahawks are paying him $37.5 million in cash this season. That includes the signing bonus on the three-year contract worth up to $100.5 million they signed him to in free agency this March, to replace the traded Geno Smith.
He’s 28 years old. He’s into bird watching.
He got engaged this summer to Katie Hoofnagle, a marketing graduate and former University of South Carolina club soccer player.
Yes, they — and their kids, and their grandchildren — are set financially.
Yet he arrives around sunrise at Seahawks headquarters to go over game plans. He studies film into morning walk-through practices. He re-does plays that he doesn’t quite nail in practice. He’s habitually one of the last players to leave the practice field each day. He stays late. He studies at home, gets up and does it early again the next day. All what an NFL quarterback does.
Darnold says he plays, as he will again Sunday when the Seahawks (1-1) host the New Orleans Saints (0-2) at Lumen Field, because he loves football.
He doesn’t have to do it to make a living anymore. He wants to.
“I still am to this day: I play for the love of the game,” Darnold said Thursday. “And nothing is going to change that.
“As soon that changes, then I feel like I will be done playing.”
Cooper Kupp notices Darnold’s love. The Seahawks wide receiver sees it each work day at the team’s Virginia Mason Athletic Center.
“There’s always that desire,” Kupp said. “Like, man, if something doesn’t go right he’s always the first guy, like, ‘Hey, let’s come over to the side, let’s get some extra reps of that.’ Or, ‘Man, I want to get another rep of that.’ He’s asking coaches, ‘Hey, I want to get extra time walking through some of these looks.’
“The willingness. The standard of, we’ve got all these meetings, all this stuff scheduled, (yet) finding the time for, ‘Hey, look, this isn’t enough. I need extra time. I need extra time here. I need extra work there.’”
The 32-year-old Kupp was a Super Bowl MVP and NFL offensive player of the year with Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams four years ago. He calls it a “really cool thing” that Darnold seeks perfection in his preparation every day.
“He’s one of the last guys off the field every day at practice,” Kupp said.
“So it’s very clear that Sam loves football, and really cares about winning games here.”
Sam Darnold’s roots
Darnold was born in the idyllic, beach community of Dana Point along the Pacific Coast Highway in southern Orange County, California. He asked his fiance to marry him in Dana Point, in July.
He went to San Clemente High School down the highway from Dana Point. He was a baseball and basketball player for San Clemente High, and a football wide receiver and linebacker initially. His high school basketball coach once said Darnold could have played college basketball in the then-Pac-12 or Mountain West Conference, “at worst.”
He committed to USC, where his grandfather Dick Hammer played in 2014. Darnold impressed Trojans coaches Steve Sarkisian and Clay Helton at an SC football camp.
As a redshirt freshman Darnold set the USC record for touchdown passes by a freshman with 26. That was 10 more than Todd Marinovich threw in 1989. That debut season he threw for 453 yards and five touchdowns in the Rose Bowl as SC beat Penn State 52-49. He led USC to the Pac-12 championship in 2017.
After those two, starring college seasons he entered the 2018 NFL draft. The Jets selected him third overall. He started three failed seasons with New York, one failed season with Carolina in 2022. In 2023 he was Brock Purdy’s backup in San Francisco, with Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak as his 49ers passing game coordinator.
Then last year, he was going to be rookie first-round pick J.J. McCarthy’s backup in Minnesota, until McCarthy got a season-ending knee injury in training camp.
Darnold threw for 4,300 yards and 35 touchdown leading the Vikings to a 14-3 record. Then he and the Vikes had flameouts at Detroit in the NFC North title game in week 18, and at the Los Angeles Rams in the first round of the NFC playoffs.
McCarthy healed. The Vikings chose him over re-signing Darnold. Darnold became a free agent.
Why Sam Darnold plays football
And that’s how the quarterback few in Seattle know all that much got to Seahawks headquarters Thursday answering The News Tribune asking him: Why do you play football?
“I just really enjoyed playing it. I really enjoyed watching,” he said. “First and foremost, my dad (Mike) and my mom (Chris) and my older sister (Franki) were very into watching it on Saturdays and Sundays. Even on Fridays, going to the local high school games. So that was the main reason.
“Then when I was out in the backyard, or the front yard, playing catch with my friends, those are some of my best memories I have as a kid. That’s really why I got into football.”
His parents were season-ticket holders for USC football. So he grew up watching the team that signed him to a football scholarship when Sarkisian saw him at that SC camp.
He played flag football as a kid. He began tackle football in third grade. The first quarterback he mentions as his favorite he watches growing up: Former Cal and Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers. That’s who he just beat last weekend in Pittsburgh, when Darnold’s Seahawks defeated Rodgers’ Steelers 31-17.
Darnold said it was during his three years and two seasons playing at USC that he realized he could make a career out of playing football.
“When everyone was telling me I could make a career out of it, I think that was the time I realized I could,” Darnold said.
Sam Darnold, unwavering
His coaches and teammates have a consensus, overriding impression of Darnold through his first two games as Seattle’s quarterback.
The guy doesn’t flinch. His persona, his demeanor is consistent.
Just 150 yards passing and his game-ending fumble in the red zone in the final seconds of the opening loss to the 49ers.
Two interceptions before halftime last weekend at Pittsburgh, including an awful throw short of the covered Kupp in the first quarter. A 9-for-14 second half passing with a brilliant, improvisational completion to tight end AJ Barner away from pressure when it was a one-score game in the fourth quarter. His first Seahawks win, going away.
In each and all of those moments, his teammates say Darnold has remained exactly the same.
“He’s tough as nails. Unflappable,” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said.
“The play that was made on third down there on the second drive of the fourth quarter against that linebacker pressure (from the Steelers), I thought was just vintage Sam Darnold. Playing off schedule, making a play, finding AJ, and then coming back and throwing the explosive to the Jax (Jaxon Smith-Njigba for 43 yards to set up Kenneth Walker’s clinching touchdown run), which was another phenomenal play.
“I think he’s playing great football right now.”
Offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak works eye to eye with Darnold on the sidelines during games, and in the QB’s ear calling his plays. Kubiak says Darnold, 12th in the NFL at 67.9% completion rate with two touchdowns and three turnovers, has had “a really positive start to the season.”
“I can’t say enough good things about what he’s been as a leader for our offense and our football team,” Kubiak said.
“He’s really, really steady. Doesn’t get too high, too low. It’s just, on to the next play.
“That’s how God made him.”
This story was originally published September 18, 2025 at 3:13 PM.
