The Seattle Seahawks took a leap of faith at the quarterback position this offseason, trading Geno Smith to the Las Vegas Raiders and signing Sam Darnold in free agency.
With Darnold entering a new offense and having new teammates, it's understandable that there will be hiccups along the way.
According to one Seahawks reporter, Brian Nemhauser of Hawks Blogger, Darnold hasn't exactly thrived in Seattle thus far and thinks it's fair to be concerned, even at this early stage.
“I can’t say like Sam Darnold has really clearly demonstrated this strength where he’s doing this really well or he makes this throw repeatedly well or I could see this clear progression in terms of how he’s playing or he’s great in the red zone," Nemhauser said, per Brian Coutts of Field Gulls.
“I don’t have that yet for Sam Darnold. The things that have stuck out to me more have been some judgment stuff still, like where he’s choosing to deliver the ball, when he’s choosing to deliver it. He’s thrown a handful of interceptions he should have thrown a number more because Riq Woolen or Devon Witherspoon dropped some interceptions. I just don’t know that’s where it’s like is that because he’s still learning the system and learning the players and he’ll make better decisions along the way? You hope. You also look at his history and the guy has a pretty high turnover worthy play rate over his career."
“At this point I think it’s fair to at least have a little bit of concern that, okay, he does not have a Justin Jefferson on this team who can beat any player in any coverage, and he doesn’t have a Kevin O’Connell who knows how to scheme everything perfectly to get those guys open," Nemhauser added. "That said, I don’t think this is like a red alert ‘things are absolutely a disaster,’ but it’s a yellow flag right now."
“He did not come out looking like, man, I don’t know why people said that he couldn’t repeat what he did last year when he was an MVP candidate," Nemhauser continued. "He’s definitely that guy now. I left thinking he’s not quite there yet, there’s some work to do.”
Does Darnold deserve the benefit of the doubt that he's going to be fine come Week 1? There is no easy answer to that question.
Darnold is coming off a fantastic season in which he revived his career with the Minnesota Vikings. However, he's also only got one year under his belt and is hardly proven.
It's clear that the Seahawks weren't totally sold on him, either. Yes, they gave him a $100.5 million contract, but Seattle can also get out of that deal after one season, and Seattle drafted a quarterback in the third round in Jalen Milroe.
Until we see Darnold getting it done with the Seahawks in a regular season game, there will continue to be doubts about his ability to be "the guy" in Seattle.