Sam Darnold Has Seven Interceptions in Four Games, and Mike Macdonald's Reason for Keeping Him Is a Ring From February

Sam Darnold threw 51 passes on Thursday night in Denver, the most of his career, and completed 27 of them for 278 yards. He was sacked five times and hit 17 times. Both of his interceptions came on third down, in the final six minutes of regulation and on the first possession of overtime, and by his own account both came with Cooper Kupp open in the flat. "I just got greedy," he said of the second one. The first, intended for Tory Horton on third-and-1 from the Denver 39 with 1:25 left and the Seahawks down three, was a crosser into a leaping Kris Abrams-Draine. The second, intended for Rashid Shaheed on third-and-7 from his own 28, was a sideline throw Ja'Quan McMillian caught at the 43. Wil Lutz kicked a 53-yard field goal and the reigning champions were 3-3.

Seven interceptions in four games since he came back from the glute injury he suffered on the fifth play of the opener. Twelve Seattle turnovers in six games, ten of them in the three losses, which were decided by eight combined points, and which opponents turned into 44 points. His Total QBR entering the week was 34.4, 29th in the league. On Friday, asked on his radio show whether the Seahawks would consider a change, Mike Macdonald said, "No. No."

He has a reason, and it is a good one. It is also from a different season.

The case Macdonald is making

"We just won a world championship with him," Macdonald said. "We believe in the guy." This is not a coach protecting a quarterback he is stuck with. Darnold made the 2025 Pro Bowl while leading every player in the league with 20 regular-season turnovers, and then went through the playoffs without a single one while playing on a torn-up oblique. The coach watched a quarterback who could not protect the ball in October protect it in January, when it mattered, and win. That is the whole argument: the pattern was already there last year, it did not cost them, and the man who fixed it in the postseason is the same man.

Macdonald also said the thing that is true and uncomfortable for his offensive line. "Our quarterback got hit too much today," he said Thursday. Five sacks in each of the last two games. Nik Bonitto alone generated seven pressures on 31 rushes with a 0.68-second get-off, his quickest of the season, per Next Gen Stats. Right guard Anthony Bradford has missed five games on injured reserve. The top two running backs, Jadarian Price and Zach Charbonnet, are both out. George Holani scored Seattle's only touchdown on a 1-yard run with 5:41 left. An offence with no run game and a leaky right side will produce a quarterback who holds the ball, and a quarterback who holds the ball will produce 17 hits. "There's definitely more to the equation," Macdonald said, and he is right that there is.

The case he is not answering

The problem is that neither interception was a protection failure, by the quarterback's own description. On the first, Darnold said he had Kupp in the flat and "just got a little bit of pressure." On the second, he said he got "greedy" and bypassed Kupp again. Pressure that arrives after a quarterback has passed up the open checkdown is not an offensive-line statistic. It is a decision. Seven interceptions in four games is not a number that the line produced; it is a number the thrower produced, and he says so. "I just think it's B.S for me to keep turning the ball over," he told reporters. "No way to sugarcoat it. That one sucked."

And the alternative is not a rookie. Drew Lock started the games Darnold missed and posted an 84.7 QBR, fourth in the league over those two weeks, with no interceptions. Macdonald called him "a tremendous quarterback" and "a starting-level quarterback" on Friday, in the same breath as saying the team wants to fix its problems with Darnold. That is a coach acknowledging that the backup's two-game sample is better than the starter's four-game sample on the only axis that has decided Seattle's three losses, and choosing the starter anyway because of what the starter did nine months ago. Since Darnold returned, Seattle is 1-3.

What Denver did is also worth stating plainly, because Seattle's turnover story can obscure it. The Broncos went up 14-3 on a 16-play drive, their longest of the season, and a nine-play, 79-yarder, and then did nothing; they were outgained 353-168 the rest of the way. Bo Nix threw for 107 yards on 27 attempts, 3.96 a throw, with nothing longer than 16. J.K. Dobbins carried 17 times for 41. Sean Payton's teams are now 40-0 with a double-digit halftime lead, Denver is 4-0 in one-score games this year and has three overtime wins since the start of 2025, most in the league. This is a team that wins by not losing, and it was handed the two possessions it needed. Jaxon Smith-Njigba's 12 catches for 134 yards on 16 targets say the Seattle passing game was functional when the ball went to the right place. The two times it went to the wrong one ended the night.

What would make Macdonald right

If the right side of the line gets Bradford back against Kansas City on October 25 and the sack count halves, and Darnold's interceptions were in fact the compound result of pressure and panic rather than one or the other, then the coach's diagnosis was correct and the quarterback will look like the January version again. There is a version of this where Thursday was a stressed offence with no run game doing what stressed offences do, and the fix is personnel in front of the quarterback, not behind him.

But the test is specific. The next time Darnold has a receiver open in the flat on third down and throws to the sideline instead, the explanation will not be Bradford. Macdonald has chosen to bet on the quarterback who won the Super Bowl while turnover-free for a month. That quarterback exists. The question Seattle has not answered is whether he shows up in weeks that do not end in a parade, because the evidence from 2025 and from the last four games says the same thing: he does not, until he has to.

Seattle plays the Chiefs at home on the 25th. The seven-game prime-time winning streak the Broncos ended on Thursday was the longest in the league. The three losses this season already match last year's total. Macdonald said "No" twice. He will be asked a third time.