Sam Darnold brilliant, lucky, then throws INT to send Seahawks to loss to Bucs
Sam Darnold could do no wrong. Until he did way wrong.
The Seahawks’ still-new quarterback threw what could have and should have been two interceptions earlier in the fourth quarter of a wild, tied game with Tampa Bay Sunday. A penalty on the Buccaneers saved him on the first one. A lucky bounce spared him on the second.
Then, with 58 seconds left and this shootout tied at 35-35, fate caught up to Darnold and the Seahawks. The QB waited then threw while getting hit by Tampa Bay’s blitzing safety Antoine Winfield Jr. The pass to Cooper Kupp over the middle was low. Too low, into the shoulder pad of Bucs defensive lineman Logan Hall. That changed the direction of the ball, into the arms of Tampa Bay’s diving Lavonte David for an interception at the Seattle 35-yard line. This one counted.
The Buccaneers ran from there to Chase McLaughlin’s 39-yard field goal on the final play.
Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald leaned back, trying to give the kick some body English, then just calmly took off his headset.
Buccaneers 38, Seahawks 35. Yet another loss for Seattle at formerly formidable Lumen Field.
Darnold took the blame for the end.
“I feel like that was a bad quarterback play on the last snap,” Darnold said.
He said his fault was not changing the pass protection at the line of scrimmage before the play. The one he chose was also one the Seahawks practiced against that Buccaneers defensive look. But they had also practiced an alternate blocking call in that situation. The QB said he saw rookie receiver Tory Horton open to his right side about 10 yards down the field.
If he had selected the correct blocking, Darnold reasons, he wouldn’t have gotten hit. The throw would have gone backside, to Horton. And the Seahawks would have had a first down in a march that, given Seattle’s offense gained 476 yards and scored 35 points Sunday, would have given Jason Myers the chance to win the game with a second consecutive last-play field goal.
Instead, the Bucs won it with the kick on the final play.
“I’m so disappointed in the last play,” Darnold said. “I had the opportunity to do something else with the protection.
“But that’s football.”
The interception at the end was similar in impact to the fumble Darnold lost in the red zone in the final seconds of the Seahawks’ other loss this season, at home to San Francisco in week one. Last week at Arizona, Darnold did not turn the ball over late. He led the Seahawks down the field in less than a minute to Myers’ winning field goal on the last play.
So in the simplest view, when Darnold doesn’t turn the ball over in the clutch, the Seahawks (3-2) win.
This late mistake marred an otherwise brilliant game by Darnold. He completed 28 of 34 passes for 341 yards and four touchdowns. He would have been the reason they won ... had the Seahawks won.
That’s what the quarterback’s teammates were focused on in a hushed locker room after the game.
“People keep talking about the interception. Sam played a great game,” said running back Kenneth Walker, who rushed 10 times for 86 yards on the league’s fifth-ranked rushing defense coming in.
“We have a very special quarterback here,” tight end AJ Barner said after he caught two of Darnold’s four TD passes. “And I think people are starting to find that out.”
“Sam was great,” coach Mike Macdonald said. “Played a tremendous football game. Thought we were going to have a chance to win the game there at the end. What was it, 99-yard drive, fourth down, extending plays (earlier in the fourth quarter)?
“I thought Sam played tremendous.
“We have to play better. ...But I have to do better with our defensive game plan and execution and how we call it.
“It hurts. It stings. It should, because our guys work extremely hard and they care. But we’re going to use this to move forward.”
To Jacksonville (3-1) next Sunday.
Baker Mayfield was brilliant. Tampa Bay’s 30-year-old quarterback who’s revived his career shredded the Seahawks’ injury-ravaged secondary for 379 yards passing and two touchdowns in the second half. He completed 29 of 33 passes for the defending NFC South-champion Buccaneers (4-1).
Darnold threw what should have been an interception early in the fourth quarter, on a tipped ball, but an illegal-contact penalty on Tampa Bay negated the turnover. Darnold turned the reprieve into a 6-yard touchdown pass to Barner. His second TD pass of the second half to Barner tied the game at 28.
Then after the Buccaneers downed their punt at the 1-yard line later in the final quarter. Darnold threw a dangerous pass the Bucs tipped into the air for what looked like an interception and likely Tampa touchdown. But the ball caromed into the arms of Kupp for a first down instead.
Walker then ran for 22 yards. The Seahawks got into Tampa territory. Macdonald, seeing his defense shredded by Mayfield and the Bucs’ offense all day, went for it on fourth and 2. Darnold waited, waited, waited to throw. Then rookie Tory Horton found himself all alone down the left sideline off an improvisational route on the extended play. Darnold saw him for the 21-yard touchdown.
The Seahawks led 35-28.
Mike Macdonald’s quandary
Blitz Mayfield, and expose his battered secondary?
Macdonald was torn by that choice all day.
With the game tied at 28 in the fourth quarter after Darnold’s second touchdown pass to Barner of the second half, Macdonald did blitz. And he got burned. Ty Okada, playing because Pro Bowl safety Julian Love was out injured, blitzed. Mayfield threw to where Okada blitzed from for a 17-yard completion.
Yet Macdonald kept blitzing, even with practice-squad promotees. When rookie safety Nick Emmanwori left injured later in the drive, D’Anthony Bell entered. Macdonald blitzed him, and Bell got Seattle’s first hit sack and hit on Mayfield. That ruined Tampa Bay’s drive across midfield, and forced the Buccaneers to punt in the tie game.
In the third quarter, the Buccaneers exploited third-string cornerback Nehemiah Pritchett for a touchdown catch by Steilacoom High School’s Emeka Egbuka, on Pritchett’s second play filling in for concussed Riq Woolen. Tampa Bay led 21-14 on Egbuka’s TD and catch for a two-point conversion. “We have to plaster better,” Pritchett said, using DBs’ term for covering more tightly down the field.
But with NFL rules favoring the offense on pass plays, defenders can only cover so long. Pressure is paramount to slowing down a passing game.
Macdonald acknowledged he was caught in rough spot schematically. He also blamed himself for not having better schemes when he did blitz.
“You kind of have to pick your poison against them,” he said of Mayfield and the Bucs.
The Seahawks answered Egbuka’s TD with another efficient, big-play drive by Darnold. His scoring, 53-yard pass to Jaxon Smith-Njigba in tight coverage by Antoine Winfield Jr. set up a third and goal from the 2. Darnold rolled right, rolled right and waited for Elijah Arroyo to come open short across the middle. The Buccaneers mobbed him. But no one covered fellow tight end Barner running across the back of the end zone. Darnold’s movement provided him the time to find Barner for the 2-yard touchdown. The game was tied at 21.
Tampa Bay answered that by sending Egbuka past Seahawks cornerback Josh Jobe on a post route. Mayfield’s pass for 57 yards set up a 1-yard touchdown run by Rachaad White, and the Buccaneers led again, 28-21, into the fourth quarter.
Coin toss gets Seattle back in it
One of the key moments of this game came before it kicked off: The Seahawks won another coin toss at the start. They deferred they choice to the second half.
That’s how they scored two touchdowns — Darnold’s 6-yard pass to Smith-Njigba with 6 seconds left in the first half, and Zach Charbonnet’s 5-yard run 2 minutes into the third quarter — without Mayfield and Tampa Bay’s offense having a chance to answer.
And that’s how Seattle turned a 13-0 deficit into a 14-13 lead in the third quarter.
Seahawks overcome themselves early
An avalanche of errors, in every phase, had the Seahawks down 13-0 in the second quarter. With all they did wrong, they were fortunate it wasn’t worse.
But the offense finally had their first mistake-free drive of the first half, on its last possession of it. Dareke Young gave Seattle a great drive start with a kickoff return to the Seahawks 46-yard line. Darnold completed six of nine throws in the ensuing 2-minute drill. The last was a 6-yard touchdown to Smith-Njigba cutting right to left across the back of the end zone with 6 seconds left in the half.
That play was one of at least five times on the 10-play drive Seattle double-teamed Buccaneers elite defensive tackle Vita Vea, with center Jalen Sundell and either rookie Grey Zabel or right guard Anthony Bradford. When they didn’t double Vea, Darnold was throwing ultra-quickly for completions.
He completed seven of his first eight passes of the half, and 13 of 17 for 130 yards and the touchdown for the first half.
Seattle trailed only 13-7, and received the second-half kickoff.
Mistakes ruined each of the Seahawks’ first three possessions before that TD march.
Zabel holding Tampa Bay’s Logan Hall on the first drive ruined Seattle’s move inside the Bucs 30. Jason Myers then missed a 44-yard field goal, wide left. The Seahawks remained behind 3-0 early.
On Seattle’s second possession, Sundell at center was penalized for illegally being downfield on a short pass from Darnold to Walker that would have been a 12-yard gain and first down in Tampa’s territory. Michael Dickson punted instead.
The Seahawks defense got its only three-and-out stop of the half. Bucs punter Riley Dixon booted the ball from his own end zone. It landed on Tampa Bay’s side of the field. Rookie returner Horton decided not to run up and field the ball in open field. The successive bounces led to the Bucs downing the ball at the Seattle 41, a loss of about 15 yards of field position.
Then offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak put Jalen Milroe into the game for the first time, for another of the play caller’s special package of plays for the rookie quarterback. Milroe ran a speed option, college style, to the left. His pitch to trailing back Kenneth Walker was behind him. Tampa Bay recovered the resulting fumble at its 41-yard line.
Then the Seahawks missed tackles on three consecutive plays while Tampa Bay drove to its first touchdown. Rachaad White’s 7-yard run on a pitch left behind a vanguard of blockers put Seattle down 13-0 with 2:09 left in the half.
Riq Woolen injured
Woolen, recently struggling with big pass plays aimed at him plus the second-most penalties in the NFL entering this weekend, started again in part because Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon was out for the third time in four games with a bruised knee ligament.
Then Woolen walked off injured midway through the third quarter. Nehemiah Pritchett entered at cornerback for him.
On the second play after Woolen left, the Buccaneers got Egbuka, the NFL’s offensive rookie of the month for September, one on one with Pritchett outside right. That was a mismatch. Egbuka breezed past Pritchett for a 20-yard touchdown pass from Mayfield. Egbuka then caught a two-point conversion pass from Mayfield to put Tampa Bay up 21-14.
Derion Kendrick was the nickel cornerback instead of Witherspoon in passing situations Sunday.
This story was originally published October 5, 2025 at 4:14 PM.
