The Seahawks sent Geno Smith to Las Vegas last Friday for a third-round pick, and reports surfaced immediately after the trade suggesting Seattle had their eyes on Sam Darnold to fill the void left at quarterback. They wasted little time getting their guy once the legal tampering period opened on Monday, as Darnold agreed to a three-year, $111 million contract with $55 million guaranteed. Let’s break this signing down from a fantasy perspective.
SAM DARNOLD
- Darnold had legitimately awesome stats through the first 17 weeks of the season last year before completely falling apart in a Week 18 matchup vs. Detroit for the division (and No. 1 seed) and in the Vikings’ first playoff game. He still averaged 7.9 yards per attempt with a 35:12 TD-to-INT ratio for the season, but he also had an elite WR duo in Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and a coach in Kevin O’Connell who’s in the conversation for the best offensive mind in the game. That doesn’t completely discredit Darnold’s achievements last season, but the overall body of work from his career combined with context around his performance and the way his season ended certainly raises questions of whether he’s actually ascended to an average NFL starting quarterback.
- The Athletic’s Michael-Shawn Dugar recently wrote an article expressing that the Seahawks want to change their offensive identity from the Ryan Grubb heavy 3-WR offense they used last year. In short, Mike Macdonald wants more 2-WR sets and a better ground game, and plans to move to a wide zone run scheme and invest more resources into the OL to optimize for that.
- Enter Klint Kubiak, who is familiar with Darnold from their time together in San Francisco and orchestrated the hottest start in football last year with the Saints before injuries destroyed New Orleans’ season. It’s far too early to crown Kubiak as an offensive genius and entertain the thought that he can do the same things with Darnold that KOC did, but there are at least some reasons to be optimistic about the pairing.
- The aforementioned investment in the offensive line will be critical if Darnold is going to succeed. Minnesota ranked 27th in offensive sack rate last year despite having the eighth-best offensive line (entering Week 18, via ETR’s Brandon Thorn), while Thorn ranked Seattle’s offensive line 25th.
- With Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf gone, the Seahawks also figure to add WR help. Jaxon Smith-Njigba took his game to new heights in 2024 and looks like a capable WR1, but Jake Bobo is currently WR2 on the depth chart. That’s not going to work.
- This is a significant downgrade in situation for Darnold, and he’s still not much of a runner. The contract and financial investment gives him a good chance to start 17 games in 2025, but he’s nothing more than a QB2/3 in best ball.
JAXON SMITH-NJIGBA
- This is a fine — and fairly expected since the Geno news broke on Friday — development for JSN. Lockett and Metcalf’s departures display the trust JSN has from the organization, and he should get as many targets as he can handle in 2025. While he hasn’t shown the ability to command a high-20s target share yet (23% and 0.23 targets per route run in 2024), he will have severely diminished target competition in 2025. Given the way Darnold’s season ended and the fact that he hasn’t succeeded as a long-term starter outside of a picture-perfect Minnesota situation, I’m inclined to call Geno to Darnold a QB downgrade, but the Lockett/Metcalf news outweighs that in terms of how JSN’s outlook has changed in the past two weeks. His ADP should rise given his target-hog potential.
J.J. MCCARTHY
- It was widely expected already, but McCarthy is officially the Vikings’ QB1 for 2025. KOC has turned every QB he’s touched to gold, so while McCarthy will take his lumps in what will effectively be his rookie season this fall, it’s difficult to imagine a better situation for a young quarterback to succeed. He’s shown competent rushing ability dating back to his time at Michigan, too. If he has the passing talent, McCarthy could surprise people in 2025.
