A short three days after trading away Geno Smith, the Seattle Seahawks found his replacement. On Monday, the Seahawks signed former Minnesota Vikings QB Sam Darnold to a three-year deal, cementing his status as their answer at the position. Let’s discuss the fantasy football impact of Darnold taking over as the QB in Seattle.
Fantasy Impact of Sam Darnold Signing With the Seahawks
Good for Sam Darnold. Completely written off after failing miserably with the Jets, Darnold bounced around the league as a backup before stumbling into a starting job with the Vikings, due in no small part to JJ McCarthy tearing his meniscus before the season ever began.
Darnold, in what would undoubtedly have been his last opportunity to prove he could be a starting NFL quarterback, could not possibly have capitalized on the situation more. Darnold threw for 4,319 yards and 35 touchdowns, leading the Vikings to a 14-3 record and a playoff appearance.
Not only that, Darnold went from free agent fodder to fantasy QB1, averaging a career-best 18.8 fantasy points per game. He posted nine games of 20+ fantasy points.
Unfortunately, Darnold was never going to be the long-term answer in Minnesota because they spent a top-10 pick on McCarthy. It was always a one-year experiment, which worked out pretty well.
The good news for Darnold is he established himself as one of the unquestioned 32 best quarterbacks walking the planet, earning a starting job somewhere else. We now know that will be in Seattle.
The biggest concern is how much of Darnold’s success was due to his own development compared to Kevin O’Connell being a wizard. We’ve seen quarterbacks far worse than Darnold post some gaudy volume numbers in O’Connell’s offense. Plus, Darnold had the benefit of throwing passes to Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and, for half the season, T.J. Hockenson. He also had one of the best pass-catching RBs of the past decade in Aaron Jones.
Seattle’s offense had a ton of weapons last year as well. Unfortunately, many of them are gone. Tyler Lockett was cut. DK Metcalf was traded. The Seahawks also fired OC Ryan Grubb after a one-year experiment that, evidently, I thought went better than they did.
There are a lot of unknowns right now about Darnold’s fantasy value because the Seahawks’ offense is very much incomplete. However, the move away from O’Connell, combined with what will inevitably be an overall downgrade in weapons likely makes Darnold more of a QB2/streamer than the every-week QB1 he was last season.
Jaxon Smith-Njiba
The only other player this move immediately impacts is Jaxon Smith-Njigba. So far, all of the Seahawks’ moves have been a boon for the third-year WR’s fantasy value. The departures of Lockett and Metcalf will naturally lead to more targets funneled JSN’s way. It also leaves no doubt that he’s their WR1.
While the Seahawks will undoubtedly sign or draft a wide receiver (there’s no way they enter the season with Jake Bobo at WR2), Smith-Njigba is the established star after last year’s breakout 100-1,130-6 season.
Replacing Geno Smith with Sam Darnold is about as good as it was going to get for JSN. Whenever a wide receiver loses his quarterback, it usually spells disaster, or at least a downgrade. Going from Smith to Darnold, at worst, should be a lateral move. Based on each’s performance last year, it could be an upgrade.
I was already very bullish on JSN this season. Adding Darnold assuages any concerns over a massive QB downgrade torpedoing Smith-Njigba’s value. He is a high WR2 entering the 2025 season.