The silver lining in the dark cloud of a quarterback injury is the potential strategic advantage it can create.
And the Seahawks seem to be leaning fully into the potential uncertainty flowing from Sam Darnold’s Week 1 mishap, which reportedly caused a strained glute tendon.
Via Andrew Destin of The Athletic, a Seahawks spokesperson said Monday that Darnold has a “very unique, soft-tissue injury.” The Seahawks call it “short term,” but they also acknowledged there is “no firm timeline.”
On Sunday, we reported that Darnold could be out four to six weeks.
The Seahawks have no obligation to say anything about Darnold, beyond the rules of the injury report. And that’s a basic, bare-bones mandate — whether and to what extent he practiced on three days before a given game (limited or full) and, in the final report, whether he’s questionable, doubtful, or out.
Teams love to force opposing defenses to prepare for multiple quarterbacks. If Darnold does enough on Wednesday, Thursday, and/or Friday to be described as participating in practice on a “limited” basis, they can keep the Cardinals guessing as to whether it will be Darnold or Drew Lock on Sunday.
And the Seahawks can keep doing that until Darnold returns.
Whatever the specific problem, it was sufficiently unique and confounding to result in up to four second opinions, as Jay Glazer of Fox Sports reported on Sunday. The thinking is they’ll be cautious with Darnold, given that their team is good enough to win without him — and given the risk that he could suffer an aggravation that extends his absence.
Seahawks Clips
Now that football season has returned, so has the season of tracking the sizes of the TV audiences for football games.
The first of 283 games that count in the 2026 season — a Super Bowl LX rematch between the Patriots and Seahawks — averaged 25.1 million viewers.
The good news is that the season-opening game has exceeded 25 million viewers for four straight years, matching the same run from 2013 through 2016. The bad news is that, via Manny Soloway of Awful Announcing, the number fell 12 percent from last year’s 28.3 million who watched the Eagles host the Cowboys, and it was the lowest since 2022.
It’s fair to wonder whether the dip had anything to do with the season starting on a Wednesday. The last Wednesday night Week 1 kickoff game happened in 2012, with the Cowboys-Giants game generating 23.9 million viewers. In contrast, the Thursday night opener the prior year, between the Saints and Packers, drew 27.2 million.
That’s odd, to say the least. The Cowboys were (and still are) the Cowboys. And the Giants — in the nation’s top media market — had just won the Super Bowl. It’s lower number than would have been expected, and it could have had something to do with Wednesday vs. Thursday.
Regardless, Week 1 Wednesday is likely here to stay. Especially in the years the NFL can’t televise a game on the first Friday night of the season.
It’ll be that way in 2027 and 2028, with a Friday night Week 1 game back on the table for 2029.
By then, it’ll likely be Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for Week 1.
Sunday’s game between the Saints and Lions included a dash of first-half controversy that kept New Orleans from scoring what would have been their first touchdown of the game.
Detroit quarterback Jared Goff dropped back to throw. Saints defensive end Chase Young hit Goff while he was winding up to throw. The pass came out backward. The Saints recovered and scored.
The ruling on the field was overturned.
After the game, which the Lions won 31-30 in overtime, NFL V.P. of instant replay Mark Butterworth addressed the decision in a pool report with Ben Raven of MLive.com.
“If the defender contacts the passer prior to the passer starting the throwing motion, then it can be ruled as a backward pass. Because Goff already started his throwing motion and then the defender contacted him, it is therefore a forward pass.”
Butterworth explained that the “determining factor” is whether the passer begins his throwing motion before contact from the defender. “The throwing motion starts as he begins to bring the ball up as a part of his windup and then the defender’s contact made the pass go backwards,” Butterworth said.
It’s confusing, because the pass went backward. And, in theory, it could lead to a nutty result. If, for example, a hit on the quarterback spins him around after he begins his throwing motion and the ball goes directly backward, it’s still a forward pass.
The rule is different from the question of whether the quarterback fumbles before his arm moves forward. In this case, the quarterback’s arm moves forward but, because he was hit after he began the windup, the backward movement of the ball is still a forward pass.
Some have pointed to the nutty two-point play in last year’s Rams-Seahawks game as a contradictory outcome. Seattle quarterback Sam Darnold threw the ball backward. But he wasn’t hit while throwing the ball.
If Darnold had been hit, it would have been a forward pass.
Again, that’s the rule. It may seem strange, but it’s the rule.
The Seahawks avoided the worst-case season-ending scenario for quarterback Sam Darnold’s hip. The current expectation, however, is not for a quick return.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, Darnold could miss four to six weeks.
The injury has been described as a glute tendon, in a report from Jay Glazer of Fox. Glazer also said that the Seahawks are gathering up to four second opinions on the injury.
Surgery is not anticipated. The Seahawks will choose to be cautious with Darnold, given that they have a contending team that can, as they did on Wednesday night, win without him.
The Seahawks have taken the concept of a second opinion to the next level. And the next. And the next.
Via Jay Glazer of Fox Sports, Seattle is “gathering four second opinions” regarding the injury suffered on Wednesday night by quarterback Sam Darnold. Glazer explains that the injury is to a tendon in Darnold’s glute. The initial fear was a season-ending fractured hip socket.
The purpose of the multitude of opinions is to determine Darnold’s expected absence, along with devising the plan of attack for getting him back to full strength.
For now, Darnold will miss the Week 2 game at Arizona. Beyond that, Darnold’s availability remains to be seen.
Drew Lock presumably will be the starter in Darnold’s absence; the Seahawks also have 2025 third-rounder Jalen Milroe on the roster.
Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak is bringing one of his players from Seattle to Las Vegas.
Mike Garafolo of NFL Media reports that the Raiders have claimed guard Bryce Cabeldue off of waivers from the Seahawks. There’s no word of a corresponding move to make room for him on the roster.
Kubiak was the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator when they drafted Cabeldue in the sixth round last year. He played in eight regular season games for the Super Bowl champs last year, but was waived ahead of Wednesday night’s win over the Patriots.
Spencer Burford and Jackson Powers-Johnson are set to be the starting guards for the Raiders when they open their 2026 season against the Dolphins this weekend.
Wide receiver Romeo Doubs arrived in New England on a four-year, $68 million free-agency deal. The Patriots didn’t get anything out of him in Week 1.
Doubs had no catches on three targets and one big drop in the 13-10 loss to Seattle.
“I just wasn’t locked in,” Doubs said postgame, via Andrew Callahan of the Boston Herald. “That’s all. I mean, the video speaks for itself. I’ll be better moving forward.”
It marked the fifth time Doubs has gone without a catch in a game in his five seasons.
Doubs was wide open on a pass that hit him in the hands in the fourth quarter of a tie game. It would have been at least a 33-yard gain, but Doubs dropped Drake Maye’s pass. Maye threw an interception on the next play, setting up the Seahawks’ game-winning field goal.
“I just put that on my end,” Doubs said. “I’ll just be able to move forward. That had nothing to do with Drake [Maye]. That was 150 percent me, and I’ll be better.”
Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold will miss some time with the hip injury that knocked him out of Wednesday night’s game. But it won’t be a lot of time.
Seattle head coach Mike Macdonald said Thursday morning on Brock & Salk on Seattle Sports Radio that testing on Darnold’s hip indicated that it’s a muscle strain, not damage to the joint, which is not as serious an injury as the team feared.
“The hip is intact and it’s good. It’s more of like a muscle thing,” Macdonald said.
At this point, the Seahawks are still waiting to see how much time Darnold misses.
“How long that is, we don’t know yet,” Macdonald said.
It seems likely that Drew Lock, who replaced Darnold in the first quarter on Wednesday night and played well in the win over the Patriots, will start Week 2 against the Cardinals. But Darnold may be back soon after that.
Signs continue to indicate that Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold suffered a major injury during Wednesday’s season opener.
After undergoing a CT scan and X-Rays on Wednesday night, Darnold underwent an MRI on Thursday morning that is under review, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports. Darnold is expected to miss some time, but Schefter reports the team believes it “dodged a bullet.”
Darnold was sacked on the fifth play from scrimmage in Wednesday night’s game and came off the field with a visible limp. He was examined in the sideline medical tent before going up to the locker room for further evaluation. He was then transported to a local hospital to undergo a CT scan.
Head coach Mike Macdonald said postgame that Darnold did not suffer a fracture, which was positive news.
Drew Lock played in Darnold’s stead and helped lead Seattle to victory. Second-year QB Jalen Milroe is also on Seattle’s 53-man roster.
The Seahawks will be on the road to face the Cardinals in Week 2.
The Seahawks didn’t put any points on the board until the fourth quarter on Wednesday night, but waiting to get the scoring started didn’t keep them from coming up with a win.
Their defense forced four punts while spotting the Patriots a 10-0 lead and then came up with interceptions on New England’s final three possessions to help pave the way to a 13-10 comeback win that played out with quarterback Sam Darnold out of the game to be evaluated for a hip injury. The Seahawks also sacked Drake Maye three times in the second half and generally sent notice to the NFL that the unit that propelled them to the Super Bowl last season remain in fine shape.
“When you think about Seattle, we want you to think about our defense, and what we are going to bring each and every day,” linebacker Ernest Jones said, via the team’s website.
The Seahawks pulled off Wednesday’s performance without safeties Nick Emmanwori and Ty Okada, so they’ll have even more weapons at their disposal in the weeks to come and that’s not great news for the opposing offenses on their schedule.
