Sam Darnold
Seattle SeahawksSam Darnold has 1,478 passing yards, 10 touchdown passes, 9 interceptions and 72 rushing yards in 7 games for the Seattle Seahawks this season through Week 8, 12.6 PPR points a game (updated November 4, 2026).
Model Score by season
Down 4.6 from last season.
How good he is at what he is supposed to be doing, out of 100. Not a projection of what he will do next, and not a read on his contract. Median is about 70, and a 95 is rare. How it is built →
STM Take
A reborn journeyman quarterback with a ring and a thin baseline.
The case for
- Super Bowl LX champion and two-time Pro Bowler over the last two seasons, an arc no one else on this list has matched.
- Climbed from STTM #42 tier 8 in his pre-Minnesota era to top-15 in back-to-back years.
The worry
- Career sample before 2024 reads STTM #34, #40, #42, all tier 8; two clean years against six bad ones is still a thin baseline.
- 62.3 percent career completion percentage and 82 career interceptions are the worst marks on the top-15 board.
What to watch: Whether the Super Bowl win compounds into a tier-1 or tier-2 finish, which would finally separate this from a two-year hot streak.
Full take and bio
Darnold at STTM #15 tier 4 is the lagging indicator of a Super Bowl LX win. The bust label is gone, but the rank still reflects six pre-2024 seasons of tier-8 or backup work. The case is a two-year sample of tier-3-or-better play stacked against the longest journeyman stretch in the top fifteen.
Darnold was born in Dana Point, California and won the 2016 Archie Griffin Award as a USC freshman before the Jets took him third overall in the 2018 NFL Draft. He bounced through New York, Carolina, and San Francisco as a backup or split starter through 2023, then broke out with the Vikings in 2024 and earned his first Pro Bowl nod. He signed with Seattle in 2025, led the Seahawks to Super Bowl LX, won it, and earned a second straight Pro Bowl.
Comps
The players whose size, testing and production looked most like his at the same point in their careers. The percent is how close.
Plays like: Eli Manning, Rex Grossman, Davis Mills. Built like: Curtis Painter, A.J. McCarron, Andy Dalton. Coming out: Curtis Painter, Kevin Kolb, Matthew Stafford.
Of his 20 closest coming out: 3 stars, 5 starters, 9 backups, 3 didn't stick.
Sam Darnold Injury StatusNot listed
Sam Darnold is not on the injury report as of Nov 4. Source: the official NFL injury report, refreshed daily.
This season · 7 games
12.6 fantasy points a game, 88 PPR on the season. Every game on the Game Log, every season on Career. Advanced numbers are EPA and Next Gen Stats.
Contract2026 cap
Every year of the deal, the dead money and what a cut or trade saves on the Contract tab.
Fantasy outlookWeek 9
Our rest-of-season board has Sam Darnold at QB21 (the public consensus says QB22); the model has 120 PPR points left for him this season; this week he hosts CHI.
Price a trade for him on the fantasy trade calculator, or see the whole board on the Fantasy hub.
Draft & College
Round 1, pick 3 to the New York Jets in 2018, out of USC (Pac-12). He went about where consensus had him.
In college, 2016-2017, 27 games: 6,978 pass yds, 58 TD, 20 INT, 62.3% completions. Coming out: 4.85s 40 yd, 26.5" vertical, 105" broad, 6.96s 3-cone, 4.4s shuttle.
Recruited
Class of 2015 · Quarterback · High school: San Clemente, CA
USCHis offer board, and the recruits whose boards look like it now →