Sam Darnold rejects idea that he should have seen more preseason snaps

The Seattle Seahawks' defense passed their first test of the season with flying colors. If not for a couple of late lapses from cornerback Riq Woolen the Seahawks likely would have beaten the San Francisco 49ers despite a pretty imbalanced effort.

Offensively, Seattle had a couple of standouts. Zach Charbonnet had some strong runs despite facing a brutal Niners defensive front and Jaxon Smith-Njigba appears to be an All-Pro trajectory. The rest of the offense was another story, though. Seattle's other receivers produced little, their offensive line was nowhere near as good as the preseason and Sam Darnold collapsed in the big moment.

Despite the rough outing, Darnold doesn't think that getting more playing time in the preseason would have made a difference. Here's what he had to say about it after the game.

Sam Darnold says playing only one series in preseason wasn’t an issue today pic.twitter.com/qbT5KnaQuZ
— Bob Condotta (@bcondotta) September 7, 2025

Darnold has it right. For one thing, preseason competition is nothing like the level of play they saw from the 49ers on Sunday. A few more drives against the vanilla-schemed backup defenses of the Raiders and Chiefs wasn't going to help anything.

The truth is that it's going to take time for Darnold to get fully settled in with this new offense and to build a rapport with other receivers outside of JSN. No amount of preseason snaps was going to make a significant difference in this area.

Too much is being made of Darnold's performance yesterday, in any case. This was a brutal first test for a quarterback playing his first start with a new team and in an environment that was hostile despite it being a home game. Darnold didn't throw any picks or make any mistakes right until that last dropback where he fumbled, which wouldn't have happened if Abe Lucas hadn't been pushed into his lap by Nick Bosa.

Seahawks fans are understandably antsy after losing such a close game to their most-bitter rivals, but they have to be more patient wth Darnold's progress.

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