The Super Bowl is in the books, and Sam Darnold has climbed the mountain. He has gone from being discarded and forgotten about as one of the NFL Draft’s greatest busts to being a Super Bowl champion.
Usually, winning a Super Bowl is portrayed as all that matters for a quarterback, but as the analysis has poured in on the Monday following the big game, at least one analyst isn’t ready to put Darnold in the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks.
Ryan Clark Not Sold on Sam Darnold
Everyone loves a good list, and that’s especially true after the Super Bowl. For the last three years, the talking points of the Super Bowl have included where Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes ranks on the all-time quarterback scale with each passing Super Bowl.
Mahomes did not play in the big game this year, as the Chiefs missed the playoffs, which sparked discussion about Sam Darnold. Darnold’s story is not unfamiliar at this point. He was drafted by the New York Jets, and things did not work out for him there. The team ultimately moved on from him, and Darnold began bouncing around the league.
Even when he played well, which he did during the 2024 season for the Minnesota Vikings, he could not find his forever home. Despite the Vikings’ success of winning 14 games in 2024, they moved on from Darnold in favor of giving the keys to first-round pick JJ McCarthy.
McCarthy struggled with injuries and poor play, while Darnold was standing on the Super Bowl podium at the end of the season.
Despite that fact, Ryan Clark was not ready to say Darnold was in the top five of quarterbacks in the NFC, claiming he’d take nine guys ahead of him.
Clark named Matthew Stafford, Jalen Hurts. Brock Purdy, Baker Mayfield, Dak Prescott, Jordan Love, Jared Goff, Caleb Williams, and Jayden Daniels as guys who would all win the Super Bowl if they were the starting quarterback in Seattle.
Clark would go on to say that if any of those men were starting for Seattle, they would have beaten the Patriots by a more significant margin than what the Seahawks ultimately did with Darnold under center.
Maybe that’s a fair point for Clark to make. Stafford won the league MVP this year and is likely ticketed for Canton when his playing career ends. Jalen Hurts has played well in two Super Bowls, including winning Super Bowl 59 MVP. Jordan Love was a fringe MVP candidate before suffering a concussion in Chicago.
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Caleb Williams has as much talent as anyone in football, and Jayden Daniels was a popular MVP pick coming into the season thanks to his rookie of the year campaign in 2024.
One thing is certain about the lists that are sure to continue to roll out in the coming days: Darnold is not worried about them. He has found his forever home in Seattle and will have a Super Bowl ring on his mantle at home when his team receives its rings this summer.
