Seattle’s defense again doing what it has all season also would set up a showdown next week at San Francisco for the NFC West title.
Sam Darnold is back home. Back to one of his football homes, anyway.
The Seahawks quarterback from San Clemente in southern California, then USC, started his NFL career in New York. He was the third-overall pick in the 2018 draft by the Jets. After three failed seasons with them, Darnold re-started his pro career here in Charlotte, with the Panthers.
He remembers those 2021 and ‘22 seasons fondly.
“The couple years in Carolina were huge for me,” Darnold said this week.
He said that while he and the NFC West-leading Seahawks (12-3) were preparing to play at his former Panthers (8-7) Sunday.
His two seasons with Carolina restored Darnold’s confidence and, thus, his NFL life.
He’d gone 13-25 with 39 interceptions in his three seasons with the Jets. He was coming off a 2-10 season in 2020. That led New York to trade him to Carolina with a year left on his big, rookie contract.
He was 24 years old, single, a SoCal kid starting over again in the East. The Panthers had gone 5-11 the previous season. They acquired Darnold to replace Teddy Bridgewater.
Darnold’s first season with Carolina, he went 4-7. He threw nine touchdown passes against 13 interceptions before he got hurt. He was better than his injury fill-in, Cam Newton. The Panthers’ former Super Bowl starter went 0-5 to finish that season, his one-and-done return to Carolina at age 32.
Darnold now says he grew up as a man and a QB that first Panthers season in 2021.
“First of all, I think just being around really good players, being around really good guys in the locker room, those are moments that I remember forever. Some of those guys are still some of my best friends to this day,” he said. “Then, just learning football. I think that first year I learned a lot about myself, just going through adversity and learning that way.”
Darnold turned those lessons into a strong training camp the following summer. But in the final preseason game, at Buffalo in late August 2022, he suffered a high-ankle sprain. He missed the first two months of that ‘22 season. Baker Mayfield, another former top-overall pick discarded by the team that drafted him (Cleveland), replaced Darnold. Mayfield went 1-5 to begin the Panthers’ ‘22 season. Darnold returned and won four of his six games for Carolina that season, with seven TD passes and just three interceptions.
“That second year (I) battled through an injury throughout the first half of the season, then came out on the other side and was able to play some pretty good football towards the end of that season,” Darnold said this week. “I feel like that kind of gave me momentum going into that next year.
“So I learned a lot of good football in that last year in Carolina, especially.”
After his 2023 season backing up Brock Purdy in San Francisco then a career-year in 2024 for Minnesota before the Vikings went with top pick J.J. McCarthy for 2025 instead of him, Darnold is with Seattle. He has the Seahawks two wins from the NFC West title and the conference’s top playoff seed.
He’s made the Pro Bowl for the second straight season. He’s won 26 games the last two seasons, the most in NFL history for a quarterback playing for two different teams in two years.
Sunday against his former Panthers fighting Tampa Bay for the NFC South title, Darnold can become the fifth quarterback all-time to win at least 13 games in consecutive seasons. The others: Aaron Rodgers for Green Bay from 2019-21, Tom Brady (twice) for New England in 2010-11 and 2003-04, Brett Favre for the Packers of 1996 and ‘97 and Peyton Manning for Denver in 2012 and ‘13.
Darnold would be the first to do that with different teams.
He is coming off a memorable rally from 16 points down in the fourth quarter to push the Seahawks past the Rams in overtime nine days ago. That strengthened his teammates’ trust in him.
Yet a large reason Seattle had that deficit to make its largest fourth-quarter comeback to win in the team’s 50-year history was because Darnold threw two more interceptions.
That made him the league’s leader in turnovers this season, with 18 in 15 games.
Limiting if not eliminating Darnold’s giveaways is the key for Seattle against the surging Panthers, next week at San Francisco in what could be the NFC West title game to finish the regular season — plus in the playoffs next month.
The first task: Sunday back in the city where he had his two turnaround two seasons with Carolina, after his failed start in New York.
“To be honest, there was too much going on in my life at that time when I got traded to Carolina to worry about what it was in my life or what time was going on,” Darnold, since married, says now. “It was more so just getting there, learning the offense, meeting the guys, and that was really it that was on my mind.
“For me it was just another experience that has kind of paved the way for who I am and kind of what I’ve become.” This could be a million-dollar game for Darnold. He could earn $500,000 in a contract bonus if he throws for 297 or more yards. That would give him 4,000 for the season. Four more touchdown passes will give him 28, and another $500,000.
2nd key: Stop Rico Dowdle
The Panthers signed former Cowboys kick returner and backup runner Rico Dowdle in free agency before this season, coming off his 1,000-yard season for the Cowboys.
He has another one this season for Carolina. He’s rushed for 1,007 yards in 15 games, a total just behind San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey for top 10 in the NFL. Dowdle has averaged almost 5 yards per carry.
“They’re committed to the run game, and they find ways to get them to it in the pass game. He’s a really good player,” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. “He can catch out of the backfield. In the run game, he’s decisive, heavy and elusive. He wins after contact, and he sees it really well.”
Macdonald’s Seahawks have stopped most backs all season. They are number one in NFL allowing just 3.7 yards per rush.
If Byron Murphy (who should have made the Pro Bowl), Leonard Williams and DeMarcus Lawrence (both of whom did) continue what they’ve done this season, Seattle’s defensive front can put Carolina in long third downs. That puts this game on Panthers quarterback Bryce Young.
3rd key: Corral Bryce Young
Carolina’s first-overall pick in the 2023 draft is 8-6 with a career-high 21 touchdown passes and nine interceptions this season. The eight victories are two more than he had in his first two NFL seasons combined with the Panthers.
Young has the Panthers a game ahead of the Buccaneers for a division title and fourth seed in the NFC playoffs. The Panthers and Bucs play in Tampa next week to finish the regular season.
Yet Carolina is just 26th in the league in passing offense.
The 5-foot-10 Young’s threat to Seattle is his ability to change and extend plays with his running. Mobile QBs — think: Arizona’s Kyler Murry — have gotten outside the Seahawks’ defensive front for big plays the last couple seasons.
“Even though he’s a short quarterback, he’s still elusive,” Lawrence said. “He has more Kyler Murray abilities. I feel like as an overall quarterback he’s (come) along so well, being able to lead this team down the stretch. A lot of 2-minute drives this season where he came alive.
“So, hats off to him.”
If Young gets away Sunday, pass plays the Seahawks stellar secondary has covered down the field could become first downs, anyway. And that could swing this game Carolina’s way.
Demarcus Lawrence, #Seahawks Pro Bowl DE, says what he expected when he signed here this spring after 11 years with Dallas is exactly what’s happening: Seattle being a Super Bowl contender.
— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) December 24, 2025
Says this season has rejuvenated him. @thenewstribunepic.twitter.com/rrG5IYUonl
The pick
The Seahawks start sluggishly coming off their three off days last weekend then rare, Thursday off for Christmas. But they eventually limit Dowdle. And they get after Young.
Darnold returns to Carolina with a turnover-free day. That will be enough to push Seattle to 13-3 — and set up a showdown at the 49ers next Sunday in the regular-season finale for the division title and NFC’s top playoff seed.
Seahawks 23, Panthers 16
Category: General Sports
