Stacy Rost: We’re having the wrong Sam Darnold conversation

The primary takeaway from Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold’s 2025 season – one already impressive enough as is, but which would be brilliant if capped off with a win in Sunday’s Super Bowl – is not that he’ll catapult his name from ex-Jets bust to top 10 quarterback. Those conversations will happen naturally, of course, and if you want to dive in, then by all means be my guest!

But the real conversation, the fun one, is one about quarterback development.

“I think Sam Darnold has kind of changed the game in terms of what draft value of quarterbacks is,” ESPN’s Clinton Yates, host of Clinton & Friends, told us Thursday on Radio Row during Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy. “There was a function of time that happened in which lazy owners and GMs fell in love with a certain formula and it took them too long to get out of it. We had about a 10- to 12-year span where this really was the model: Get a guy out of college and he’s going to be your guy for five years because he’s already that good.”

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It’s a formula that’s worked for franchises before. Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City have kept that alive with actual championships. Even without rings, Buffalo’s Josh Allen and Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson have been examples of finding generational talent that revealed itself and boosted a team to new heights relatively quickly (barring Mahomes’ sitting most of his rookie season and those early accuracy concerns for Allen, all three MVPs proved their talents obvious well before getting massive extensions). That’s true for the team on the other side of the field Sunday: New England’s 2024 No. 3 overall pick Drake Maye is already in a Super Bowl with the Patriots at just 23 years old.

Moving on from a “failed” quarterback selection isn’t an intentional slight from GMs and owners. Everyone wants it to work. Sometimes the failure is one of timing, a mismatch between coach and scheme and talent, or a failing in player effort or skill. But other times it sure feels like a premature kicking-to-the-curb. And making matters worse: How often are those pools of free agent passers seen as serious franchise cornerstones instead of bridge quarterbacks? Kurt Warner might be a famous Cinderella story and Drew Brees one of the most successful free agent quarterback signings, but Yates is right – the preferred formula for so many has felt a bit more like Mahomes and less like Seattle’s Darnold.

“Now, (Tom) Brady doesn’t fit into that mold,” Yates added. “But you think about some of these guys who won and you’re like ‘Oh man, everybody was just trying to hit on the quarterback, hit on the quarterback, hit on the quarterback.’ When you thought … you know you have to coach this position, right? You know you have to actually build around it and make sure this person can continue to get better. You’re not just trying to find the car off the lot that’s automatically going to impress everybody.”

Baker Mayfield found a resurgence in Tampa Bay and former Jets second-rounder Geno Smith “wrote back” in Seattle even before Darnold. Conversations about quarterback reclamation projects preceded Darnold’s Seahawks debut. But how many have ever come this close to winning it all after hitting rock bottom and seeing your team (especially more than once) move on from you?

We’re not quite sure how to talk about middle-class quarterbacks because the focus is on the player himself. But Darnold’s ascent should rightfully share the spotlight with conversations about development and team building. Seattle is playing on Sunday in part because they knocked it out of the park signing Darnold, but also because that front office and general manager John Schneider were able to rebuild a championship roster without, as Yates said, using the same old formula of tanking to get a top pick and their quarterback of the future (and then counting on that young man to magically turn them into a Super Bowl team).

“I love the fact that we have people like Sam who can show people that it’s OK to do it different,” Hall of Famer Kurt Warner told us on The Huddle Thursday. “You’ve got a guy on the other side in Drake (Maye) who’s here in his second year and what everybody hopes you get when you draft a guy. But for some of us it takes a little bit longer. And that’s OK to have a little bit of patience.”

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