Seahawks and Sam Darnold through 3 games are both leaning left. Here’s why.
Suddenly, the Seahawks are starting games quickly.
And though the coaches and players want a balanced offense, Seattle is leaning left.
It’s working.
The Seahawks had gone 22 games over two years without scoring a touchdown on their opening possession. Now they’ve scored two opening-drive TDs in the last two games.
The latter one came Sunday with Sam Darnold’s touchdown pass to Jaxon Smith-Njigba 5 minutes into the game against New Orleans at Lumen Field. The score started an avalanche of 35 Seattle points in the first 1-1/2 quarters, and seven consecutive scoring drives to begin the game, in a 44-13 rout of the Saints.
Touchdowns to begin games are validating the plays new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak is scripting for the starts of games. Like all NFL play callers, Kubiak plans out the first dozen to two dozen plays for games based on the film study during the week of the opposing defense’s tendencies. Darnold calls them “openers.”
Kubiak’s openers at Pittsburgh and against New Orleans the last two games have produced 14 plays, 120 yards, 8.6 yards per snap, seven first downs and 14 points on opening drives. Seattle took both fast starts to its two wins.
Those results increase the buy-in Darnold and the players on the Seahawks’ remade offense have with their new play caller.
That belief is coming in handy this short week. The Seahawks (2-1) were already putting in parts of the game plan Monday for their game Thursday night at NFC West-rival Arizona (2-1).
There’s no time to doubt the plan coaches are installing on the fly this week.
There’s no reason right now for them to doubt it.
“It’s huge. Just the preparation, like you said, that we put in throughout the week, that’s how you want to start the game,” Darnold said. “You go through your openers and you go through certain things that you want to do against their defense.
“You know, sometimes, especially early in the season, you’re not necessarily sure exactly what you’re going to get from their defense. I feel like our guys did a really good job of executing no matter what the circumstances were, even it was a different look than what we practiced. I thought just execution was at a high level (Sunday).”
Through his first three games since the Seahawks signed him to a three-year contract worth up to $100.5 million to replace traded Geno Smith in March, Darnold is completing 70.3% of his passes. That’s the league’s sixth-best completion rate. The only QBs more accurate who have started more than one game so far this season are Jared Goff (80.6% entering Detroit’s third game Monday night at Baltimore), New England’s Drake Maye (72.6%), Daniel Jones of unbeaten Indianapolis (71.6%), Dallas’ Dak Prescott and Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts (both 71.4%).
“Sam’s had a really positive start to the season,” Kubiak said.
Darnold’s 9 yards per completion is second-best in the NFL among regular starting quarterbacks. He has four touchdown passes and three turnovers (two interceptions plus the fumble he lost in the final minute, in the red zone, to seal his team’s opening loss to San Francisco).
Seattle’s remodeled offensive line has allowed Darnold to be sacked just three times in three games. Only Jones with the so-far soaring Colts has started three games and been sacked fewer times than Darnold.
What to coach Mike Macdonald has been the best of what Darnold’s done through three games?
“Being efficient. Decisive. Accurate. Tough,” Macdonald said Monday. “Extending plays when he needs to. Being aggressive when he needs to. Taking care of the ball when he needs to.
“So,” the head coach said, “let’s keep it rolling.”
They might continue trending that roll to one side.
Left-handed Seahawks
It’s still early in a 17-game season to have true tendencies. Yet the Seahawks’ offense is leaning left.
Understandably.
That side of Seattle’s offensive line is its strength. Left tackle Charles Cross and left guard Grey Zabel, the team’s rookie first-round draft choice, have at times dominated defensive fronts.
That’s likely to continue, with whom they have and the success they are having to that side.
Many times against the Saints, Zabel at left guard blocked multiple pass rushers on the same snap inside. That provided Darnold time to progress through reading multiple receivers then throw many of his 14 completions, in 18 pass attempts.
The previous week, Kenneth Walker’s game-clinching touchdown run on third and goal from the 19 in the fourth quarter at Pittsburgh came behind Eric Saubert blocking down from left tight end and Cross mauling a poor Steelers defensive back into the left sideline.
In that Pittsburgh game, the Seahawks ran 17 of their 29 rushing plays for 71 of their 117 yards on the ground to the left side. Darnold’s best play was when he scrambled to his left away from pressure and threw on the run across his body to tight end AJ Barner to convert a key third down in the fourth quarter.
Sunday, the Saints appeared ready for runs to Seattle’s left. The Seahawks had just 14 yards on eight carries to the left side against New Orleans. Walker had a 20-yard gain off left tackle negated by a holding penalty on Saubert.
It was passing to the left that worked for Seattle. The right-handed Darnold’s first pass was after he scrambled to his left, pulled up and casually flipped the ball over a defender’s head to Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a short catch and run for 29 yards.
The next play, Kenneth Walker ran off Cross at left tackle. Zabel then jawed with New Orleans defensive lineman Bryan Bresee after a third-down pass Darnold threw incomplete. Bresee head-butted Zabel with his facemask first to draw a drive-extending penalty for unnecessary roughness.
On the resulting first down, Darnold faked a handoff inside to Walker then rolled to his left on a bootleg. He threw across his body complete to Smith-Njigba for a 12-yard touchdown.
In the second quarter, Darnold again ran to his left on a short scramble. Zabel at left guard blocked not one but two Saints pass rushers. That allowed Darnold the time to throw across his body to rookie Tory Horton for a 9-yard gain. The easy third-down conversion on the next play propelled the Seahawks to Jason Myers’ 56-yard field goal. That increased Seattle’s lead to 38-3 with 94 seconds left in the first half.
Darnold threw only seven more passes the rest of the game. Backup Drew Lock replaced him and played the fourth quarter.
For the day, Darnold was 3 for 3 passing while rolling to his left, for 50 of 218 passing yards and one of his two touchdowns.
Sam Darnold’s offseason work
Darnold was asked Sunday following Seattle’s second win in nine home games what the key is to throwing accurately across his body.
He said it’s from work February through June.
“I think just doing it a lot, getting reps at it in the offseason,” Darnold said. “(It’s) understanding momentum. Understanding how fast I’m going and just being able to turn my shoulders. I can be running as fast as I need to be to my left, as long as my shoulders are turned. I understand that going to my left that ball is going to pull a little left as I’m throwing left, so just understanding those details.
“At the end of the day, just comes down to getting those reps in the offseason. Even now.”
A right-handed quarterback throwing accurately while running to his left is an equalizer for an offense against an aggressive defense that attacks a QB’s and offense’s tendencies. The Cardinals’ Kyler Murray will try to do throw on the run to his left against the Seahawks on Thursday night in Arizona.
Macdonald is a defensive mind, the former Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator. He says quarterbacks such as Darnold who can be a threat completing passes down the field while rolling across his body to his non-dominant side keeps a defense and defensive play caller from being able to attack an offense on one side.
“Being able to go both ways helps in terms of tendencies and pulling up on boots, things like that,” Macdonald said. “You’ve got to play everything honest.”
The Seahawks saw Darnold’s accuracy throwing on the run and to his left last season when he led Minnesota to a 14-3 record with 4,300 yards passing and 35 touchdowns.
While Darnold was doing that for the Vikings, Kubiak was calling the Saints’ plays in 2024. His New Orleans offense threw the third-most passes outside the pocket in the NFL last season.
Signing Darnold was in part a marriage of a quarterback’s strength with a new play caller’s rollout, bootleg scheme.
“We knew that he was good throwing on the move, and he was comfortable doing that,” Macdonald said.
“That’s obviously a big part of our system.”
This story was originally published September 22, 2025 at 2:22 PM with the headline "Seahawks and Sam Darnold through 3 games are both leaning left. Here’s why.."
