Did Rams switching safeties fool Sam Darnold into 4 INTs in Seahawks’ LA loss?
It’s easy to say — as Sam Darnold famously once did in a game when he was with the Jets early in his NFL career — that he was “seeing ghosts.”
The same Los Angeles Rams that spooked him with a league playoff record-tying nine sacks to eliminate Darnold’s Minnesota Vikings last January did a job on him again Sunday at SoFi Stadium.
Darnold tied his career high by throwing four interceptions, all into tight coverage, his most in six years. Two of those four picks led directly to two of L.A.’s three touchdowns as Seattle lost 21-19 and fell back to second place behind the Rams in the NFC West.
Yet the apparitions he saw this time against Los Angeles weren’t exactly memories of his previous loss to the Rams 10 months ago.
Cooper Kupp says what Darnold really was seeing were disappearing safeties.
Kupp knows the Rams better than any Seahawk. The now-Seattle wide receiver spent the eight years before this with Los Angeles. He was a Super Bowl MVP and NFL offensive player of the year in 2021, when he and the Rams won it all.
Kupp said Sunday evening after his first time playing against the Rams that L.A. defensive coordinator Chris Shula had them moving safeties up and back in changing defensive alignments. What looked like single-high coverage with a safety down “in the box” near the line of scrimmage to defense Seattle’s run game became two safeties deep, “Cover 2” shell schemes after snaps.
“They were throwing some safeties down. They were doing some good stuff,” Kupp said. “Being able to show lighter boxes, but then also being able to get into places where they were dropping into what essentially ended up being some Cover-2 looks. But, you know, show eight-man boxes which was obviously a big advantage for them.
“But we just didn’t execute well enough.”
Kupp shook his unruly blonde hair and head. He rubbed his bearded chin.
“Kudos to them,” he said. “They had a good plan.
“We’ve got to do better as players to make plays come alive.”
Sam Darnold’s Sunday
Darnold’s four interceptions Sunday tied his career high he did twice in his failed time starting out in the NFL with the Jets. He did it once in his rookie season of 2018, and again in ‘19.
“We knew we were going to have to take care of the football,” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said Sunday evening before the team flew home, “and we didn’t do that.”
Geno Smith never threw more than three interceptions in a game over his three seasons as Darnold’s predecessor in Seattle. That includes the three picks he threw against L.A. last season at Lumen Field, with Rams safety Kamren Kinchens returning one 103 yards for the key touchdown in yet another Seahawks loss to the Rams.
It’d been nine years since a Seattle QB had thrown as many interceptions as Darnold did Sunday. Russell Wilson threw five at Green Bay in 2016. Two of those went off receivers’ hands.
None of Darnold’s did Sunday. All were right to Rams in tight coverage. Two of his interceptions were directly at Kinchens playing deep safety in the middle of the field.
“The rush contains him, and he wants to get rid of the ball. And he’s flinching up,” Kinchens said. “He don’t want to get sacked. He’s just trying to get the ball out of his hands. So that’s when I knew there was an opportunity.”
Two of Darnold’s picks resulted in L.A. touchdown drives of 3 and 25 yards.
The News Tribune asked him if the Rams moving safeties up and back as Kupp described factored into his four interceptions.
“They do a good job of disguising shell and all those things. I feel like a lot of defenses do the same thing,” Darnold said. “I feel like their pass rush, their linebackers, their safeties are all on the same page and playing really good football. They do it at a high level. They seem like really smart players.
“But again, those are self-inflicted wounds, turning the ball over like that. Sometimes it’s better just to try to throw the ball away or even take a sack when nothing is there.”
A sack was what was Darnold said was on his mind to avoid in the fourth quarter when, down 21-12 and his team on the edge of field-goal range, he stepped up from getting hit and tried a jump pass over the line on third down to rookie tight end Elijah Arroyo.
Cornerback Darious Williams was in front of Arroyo. Darnold’s pass went directly to Williams. No points when three would have made it a one-score game again with more than 10 minutes still to play.
“Yeah, I was just trying to get the ball out of my hands. Just a poor decision,” Darnold said.
“There was a lineman in the way. I didn’t see the DB. I tried to make a jump pass and it just didn’t work out. I’ve just got to dirt that one.”
The loss within the defeat for Seattle beyond Darnold’s interceptions was not scoring touchdowns on two long drives inside the Rams’ 20-yard line in the second quarter. The Seahawks used 14:47 of the 15-minute period of 13- and 15-play marches. They ended the half with the ball, and received the second-half kickoff to keep themselves in the game after Darnold’s interceptions had them down 14-3.
Yet twice they scored only three instead of seven points, including when officials rightly penalized rookie tight end Nick Kellerup for holding at the point of attack on what would have been a 15-yard touchdown run by Kenneth Walker.
The Seahawks could have used those eight lost points in the two-point loss.
“The Rams are a really good team, and we need to be able to capitalize on scoring opportunities in the red zone,” Macdonald said.
On Los Angeles’ defense in the red zone, Darnold said: “Again, like I said, I felt like they did a really good job of taking things away. I felt like I could have hit some throws as well. I felt like I could have moved on in some progressions and been able to check the ball down. “There are a lot of different variables that go into it. And like I said, we will learn from it and move on.”
Backing Sam Darnold
Darnold has been remarkable for most of the first two months to this Seahawks season.
He’s a primary reason the team that’s missed the postseason twice in the last three years are 7-3, in the top wild-card playoff spot and owning what the NFL says is a 90% chance to make the playoffs. Darnold leads the league in yards per pass attempt, completions of more than 10 yards and of more than 20 yards. He is why Jaxon Smith-Njigba leads the league with 1,146 yards, nearly 300 yards more than any other receiver.
Yet he hasn’t beaten the two teams he must to win the division.
Down 17-13 to the 49ers in week one he lost a fumble in the red zone in the final minute Sept. 7 when Nick Bosa pushed Seattle right tackle Abe Lucas into Darnold pass rushing.
And then Sunday in L.A.
Darnold also threw an interception while getting hit on an unblocked safety blitz late in a 35-35 tie with Tampa Bay last month. That pick handed the Bucs their game-winning field goal.
Darnold’s 14 turnovers in 10 games, 10 interceptions and four lost fumbles, are tied with Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa for most in the league.
Sunday was Darnold’s his third NFL game with zero touchdown passes and four interceptions. That’s more than anyone else in the league over the past 25 years, Mike Sando pointed out Monday in The Athletic.
Yet Seahawks teammates and coaches were quick, and colorful, proclaiming their support for Darnold during and after the four-pick day.
After the third interception Darnold walked to the Seahawks sideline then slammed his helmet atop the bench. Veteran linebacker Uchenna Nwosu came up to him.
“We got your back, Sam. Don’t worry about it. We’re built for this,” Nwosu told Darnold. “No matter what happens, we are always going to have your back. That’s why we train all offseason, to have each others’ backs, to be a brotherhood, to be 12 as one.”
That’s Macdonald’s Seahawks mantra, “12 as One.”
Macdonald acknowledged Darnold was, in the coach’s word, “pissed” at the interceptions.
Macdonald said he told the QB amid all the turnovers: “Keep rippin’ it, man. We love you, and we got your back.”
Macdonald also acknowledged Darnold’s comeback following the four interceptions, to within a few yards of perhaps winning the game. Backed up to the Seattle 1-yard line with 1:41 and two time outs remaining down 21-19, Darnold completed 6 of 9 passes in a hurry to move the Seahawks to the L.A. 43. They called their final time out after Darnold’s final, frantic completion to Rashid Shaheed got them 6 more yards.
They needed about 12. Jason Myers’ 61-yard field goal that would have tied his career long from 2020 in this same indoor stadium, was well short and wide. The Seahawks lost for only the second time in eight games.
“I thought he was great,” Macdonald said. “Sam’s, like, an ultimate competitor. And so he’s going to be pissed. That’s what we love about him. But he’s going to bow up and he is going to keep rockin’ back. That’s how we had to play to go try to win the game.”
Ernest Jones, Seattle’s middle linebacker, defensive signal caller and team leader, was pointed and R-rated in his support for his QB.
“Man, Sam’s been ballin’,” Jones said. “If we want to try to define Sam by this game...Sam’s had us in every (frickin’) game. So for him to sit there and say, ‘Oh, that’s my fault,’ no, it’s not. There were plays by the defense that we could have made plays. There were opportunities that we could have got better stops.
“Yeah, it’s football, man. He’s our quarterback. We’ve got his back.
“You got anything to say, quite frankly, f*** you.”
This story was originally published November 17, 2025 at 8:05 AM.
