Stephen A. Smith stuck on 6-month old take on Seahawks QB Sam Darnold

Sam Darnold has already proven that he can win big games with the Seahawks, but some narratives die hard.

Oct 20, 2025; Seattle, Washington, USA; Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold (14) warms up prior to the game against the Houston Texans at Lumen Field. | Steven Bisig-Imagn Images

Once an analyst makes up their mind about a quarterback, it can be very difficult for that initial prior to change - no matter what he might do on the field. Unfortunately for Sam Darnold, many observers made up their minds about him after he threw a pick-six on the first pass attempt of his NFL career.

That was a very long time ago, though - and the Sam Darnold we have seen over the last season and a half is absolutely nothing like the bust he was early in his career with the Jets.

Some folks are determined to see Darnold fail, though. Here's ESPN pundit Stephen A. Smith trotting out the offseason narrative that Darnold can't win big games based on how last season ended for the Minnesota Vikings.

Stephen A. Smith on Sam Darnold

“I saw the season finale of the regular season game after you were 14-2 last year. I ain’t letting that go... I’m saying to you, I need to see. I need to see what [Darnold] is going to do as the season wanes... If you that dude, Sam Darnold, you should be able to do it.. Let’s see what you do in the playoffs as well. We ain’t going to just ignore all of that from last year.”

Oct 5, 2025; Seattle, Washington, USA; Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold (14) takes the field prior to a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Lumen Field. | Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

At this point, we really should be ignoring all of that from last year.

For one thing, Darnold is in a different situation now. While most folks expected his game to drop off big-time in the absence of Kevin O'Connell, Justin Jefferson and the rest of Minnesota's supposedly-superior supporting cast, that has not been the case at all.

Darnold is definitely getting an assist from Jaxon Smith-Njigba playing at a Jerry Rice type of level, but in practically every metric he's performing even better than he did last season with the Vikings.

It's especially wrong to question if Darnold can win big games with this team - because he literally just won a prime-time game against the team that came into last week with the best scoring defense in the NFL.

Darnold has also beaten a very strong Jacksonville team, a solid Steelers team and came within a hair of beating the both the Buccaneers and the 49ers - two losses that had more to do with late defensive lapses than anything Darnold did.

Winning playoff games requires a lot of moving parts and it remains to be seen just how far this Seahawks team will go with Darnold at the helm. However, the can-Darnold-win-big-games question has already been settled definitively.

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