Sam Darnold slips again in NFL quarterback power rankings after another dud

Going into the final week of the regular season, there's no doubt that these Seattle Seahawks are a juggernaut and one of the NFL's most-dangerous playoff teams.

Since their Week 11 heartbreaker against the Los Angeles Rams, Seattle has not lost once - giving them a six-game winning streak heading into their season finale against the 49ers. Overall, they have won 10 of their last 11, making them the hottest team in the league right now.

And yet you won't find much confidence in this team going into the playoffs - and for good reason: their starting quarterback is currently in the middle of a rut.

Sam Darnold's struggles continued this past week against the Carolina Panthers, as he only managed to throw for 147 yards and one touchdown to go with two more turnovers. As a result, Darnold has slid once again in CBS Sports' quarterback power rankings. He's down two spots to No. 10.

CBS ranks Sam Darnold QB10

"Sam Darnold is quarterbacking the NFC's current No. 1 seed, but his play is trending down at the wrong time. He has eight total touchdowns to 10 turnovers since Week 11. His league-leading 20 turnovers are holding him back from being truly considered a top-five quarterback, but his 8.5 yards per pass attempt (second-best in the NFL) and passer rating (99.2, 10th best in the NFL) have him inside the top 10 entering Week 18."

In Darnold's defense, Carolina's D is much tougher than most people think. They also excel at doing the one thing he struggles against most - the Panthers disguise their coverages more than any other team in the NFL this season.

While they didn't get a ton of pressure on Darnold, they played very tight coverage on the back end, making it difficult for Darnold to get an easy read all game long.

However, at this point Darnold doesn't deserve any defending. The secret is out and any team that knows what they're doing defensively is going to play heavy personnel on the back end and emphasize post-snap movement to trip him up - a formula that Darnold has stumbled against all season.

The best thing that the Seahawks can do to help Darnold to break out of this funk is to embrace the run game, which has some positive momentum going for it.

The hope is that by ramming Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet down their opponents' throats, Seattle will force defenses to shift back towards the heavy boxes that Darnold was consistently tearing up in the first half of the season.

If the Seahawks can't convince other teams to focus on the run, Darnold will continue to see a lot of dime looks and disguised coverages - and success will depend a great deal on just how efficient and explosive Walker and Charbonnet can be.

CBS ranks Sam Darnold QB10

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