Sam Darnold shows his strength in Seahawks win over Cardinals
Yahoo Sports' Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton discuss why the Seattle quarterback showed he's more than capable in Thursday night's 23-20 win over the Cardinals.
Video Transcript
And what I watched last night, Caroline Fenton, was Sam Darnold go out and absolutely carve, absolutely cook.
Sam Darnold knew when to take the green grass.
It was a show.
We saw accurate Sam.
We saw him making the throws before the break, Sam.
We saw all of this efficiency from Sam.
Sam Darnold.
And I just kept watching and I just kept thinking the same thing, man, boy, did the Vikings miss Sam Darnold now.
Maybe it's time to put a little respect on a guy's name because he's going out for Seattle and he's doing everything that we weren't sure he'd be able to do if he wasn't in the Vikings' offense.
I can't even tell you how many times.
Last night I said, Damn, that was a laser, man.
Look at Sam Darnold threading the needle.
Look at Sam coming up with a beautiful throw and a perfectly timed and perfectly aimed throw when they absolutely had to have it.
Sam Darnold, I have been saying over the last couple of weeks, I just can't, I just cannot think.
That winning 14 games in the National Football League is a mistake.
I can't believe that that's a fluke.
I don't care if you have Justin Jefferson and maybe one of the brightest offensive minds in football in KOC in Minnesota.
That's not a mistake and that doesn't happen by accident.
And I do think that, you know, it's not like Sam Darnold's leaving Minnesota and going to a team with just a bunch of scrubs.
No, he's got plenty of pieces around him with DJackson Smith and Jigbo who had a solid game last night who made some acrobatic kind of catches.
Sam Darnold is a legitimate starting quarterback in the National Football League, and we can play the, you know, quarterback ranking game all day long.
Fits, Sam Darnold is a top 15 quarterback in the National Football League.
I'm not gonna waste everybody's time by going through our rankings, but that's what he is.
And if you are Carolina, you're probably sick to your stomach watching Sam Darnold do what he is doing and do what he did last night to the Arizona Cardinals.
If you're in Minnesota, do you feel just a twinge of regret?
Do you feel just a little bit silly for letting Sam Darnold walk?
Uh, Jackson Smith and Jigba had one target in the first half and the Seahawks were still rolling?
Why?
Because Sam Darnold was doing what quarterbacks that are good are supposed to do.
He was using his eyes.
He was going through his progressions.
He was getting through his reads.
He was finding the open guy.
What the hell else do you want?
Like, we sit here and we find reasons constantly to tear down quarterbacks because we are too quarterback-obsessed in the NFL without acknowledging what quarterbacks can do.
For you, if they can play at a competent level.
And that's exactly it, even if all they are getting is pretty good quarterback play in this offense with those weapons, with this coaching staff right now, pretty good is winning your football games.
So, frankly, for all this desperation of, oh my God, we gotta have the next Mahomes, we gotta have the next Lamar, we gotta have the next Josh.
What you're really saying is we gotta have the next Hall of Famer.
What we're actually seeing is you can win a bunch of football games with a competent quarterback and Sam Darnold is doing exactly that, Caroline.
