SoFi Stadium (Inglewood, Calif.) – Sam Darnold is the Seattle Seahawks‘ guy.
Defensive leader Leonard Williams made that quite clear after his team’s disappointing 21-19 loss to their NFC West division rivals, the Los Angeles Rams, at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.
“For sure,” Williams told me when asked if he still has confidence in Darnold. “After any interception, I’m like, ‘Just keep playing ball.’ We trust Sam Darnold. We know what type of player he is, what type of leader he is.
“At the end of the day, football is not a perfect game and we all make mistakes, have plays out there we want to take back. We’re always going to trust our guy.”
Seahawks linebacker Ernest Jones was even more blunt in his support for Darnold.
“Sam’s been balling,” Jones said. “If we want to try and define Sam by this game, man, Sam’s had us in every f—king game. So, for him to sit there and say, ‘Yo, that’s my fault,’ no, it’s not. There were plays defensively we could have made plays, or opportunities where we could have got stops.
“This is football. He’s our quarterback and we’ve got his back. And if you’ve got anything to say [about it], fairly frankly, f—okay you.”
Williams and Jones voiced their help after Darnold had his worst efficiency in Seattle’s greatest recreation up to now this season. Darnold accomplished 29-of-44 passes for 279 yards with no landing cross and 4 interceptions for a season-low 45.5 passer ranking.
Defensive again Kam Kinchens completed with two interceptions for the Rams, whereas Cobie Durant and Darius Williams had been liable for the opposite two. Los Angeles turned Darnold’s miscues into 14 factors offensively, benefiting from the quick fields.
Kam Kinchens (No. 26) celebrates his first interception on Sunday. (Sean M. Haffey/Getty Photographs)
Getting into Sunday’s contest, Darnold had been top-of-the-line deep passers within the NFL. Nonetheless, the Rams’ secondary didn’t enable many deep photographs. In accordance with Subsequent Gen Stats, Darnold completed 3-of-12 for 61 yards on throws of a minimum of 10 yards, with three of his 4 interceptions on these performs.
Darnold’s newest efficiency follows a pattern of him struggling in huge video games. Taking part in for the Minnesota Vikings final yr, Darnold completed 25-of-40 for 245 yards, with a landing and two turnovers in an NFC Wild card loss to the Rams, who sacked him 9 instances en path to a 77.6 passer ranking.
Darnold didn’t play significantly better with the NFC North title on the road within the ultimate regular-season recreation, finishing 44% of his passes for 166 yards and no touchdowns in a 31-9 loss to the Detroit Lions.
Darnold acknowledged afterwards he should play higher in huge video games.
“I can’t flip the ball over as a lot as I did at present,” Darnold mentioned. “I’ll be taught from it, watch the tape and develop from it.”
In accordance with Subsequent Gen Stats, the Rams performed zone protection 80% of the time and blitzed on 22% of the snaps. The Rams additionally disguised their protection 31.1% of the time, per Subsequent Gen State, the third-most within the NFL for Week 11. Former Rams receiver Cooper Kupp, now a receiver for the Seahawks, mentioned Los Angeles executed nicely pre-snap by disguising their protection to create confusion for Darnold.
“They had been exhibiting some safeties within the field,” mentioned Kupp, who had three receptions for 23 yards in his first recreation in opposition to the Rams. “But additionally attending to some locations the place they had been capable of drop into primarily Cowl-2 seems to be whereas with the ability to present eight-man containers, which is clearly an enormous benefit for them.”
Whereas Darnold struggled, this was the primary takeaway from the Seahawks: Their quarterback performed badly, however they nonetheless had an opportunity to win on a 61-yard Jason Myers area objective try that fell quick on the final play of the sport.
“The great factor is we saved battling, and that’s what our workforce goes to proceed to do,” Seahawks tight finish A.J. Barner informed me. “On the finish of the day, now we have to complete these video games and win these video games.”
“He’s an final competitor,” Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald mentioned of Darnold. “He is a good quarterback and he’s our quarterback. We love him.”
Like Barner and Macdonald, Williams believes that there are extra good issues forward for Darnold regardless of the poor efficiency. At 7-3, the Seahawks stay only a recreation again of the NFC West division-leading Rams (8-2) and face them once more in Seattle in 5 weeks.
“I simply really feel like we beat ourselves at present,” Williams informed me. “Clearly, respect to (the Rams). They’re a great workforce. They’ve a fantastic offense. However I feel total we didn’t put ourselves in place to win the sport like we usually do.
“We’re going to return, watch movie and make some corrections. And I feel our entire workforce goes to stay up for taking part in them once more.”
Eric D. Williams has reported on the NFL for greater than a decade, protecting the Los Angeles Rams for Sports activities Illustrated, the Los Angeles Chargers for ESPN and the Seattle Seahawks for the Tacoma Information Tribune. Observe him on X at @eric_d_williams.
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