- Sam Darnold‘s career year arrives: In 2024, Darnold achieved his best fantasy football season to date, finishing as the ninth-ranked quarterback in fantasy points per game.
- Darnold joins the Seattle Seahawks: For 2025, Darnold moves to the Seahawks, facing a potentially more run-heavy offense and a different set of receiving targets.
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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.
Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs
Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Friday, June 27
Player performance
Sam Darnold was the third overall pick by the New York Jets in the 2018 draft. He spent three seasons as the Jets starter but was outside of the top-26 quarterbacks in points per game all three seasons. The Jets moved on from Darnold to Zach Wilson, while Darnold went to the Carolina Panthers. He was the primary starter but finished 28th in fantasy points per game.
Injuries have been a problem throughout Darnold’s career, as he sustained a foot injury in 2018, mononucleosis in 2019, a shoulder sprain in 2020 and a concussion and scapula injury in 2021, causing him to miss three to four games each season. An ankle injury at the start of 2022 cost him the first 10 games, but he regained his starting role for the last six games of the year. His 66.3 passing grade was the best of his career, but he was still only 26th in fantasy points per game.
The Panthers moved on to Bryce Young, and there were no starting opportunities left for Darnold. Darnold chose the 49ers to be “in a really good organization.” There was also the potential of him starting early in the season as Brock Purdy recovered from elbow surgery, but Purdy was ready for Week 1. He played late in a few games throughout the year and started in Week 18 in a game where both teams rested a lot of their players.
He went to the Minnesota Vikings in 2024, and the thought was he’d be the veteran mentor to first-round rookie J.J. McCarthy, but a torn meniscus cost McCarthy his rookie season. Darnold took over and had, by far, the best season of his career. He was not only a top-25 fantasy quarterback for the first time, but he finished ninth in fantasy points per game. His 80.3 passing grade was also the best of his career.
Darnold was in a great situation, where Vikings quarterbacks under Kevin O’Connell have often succeeded. He also had Justin Jefferson to throw to, which certainly helped. He held onto the ball behind an average offensive line, allowing him to make a lot of big plays. He was only average in terms of how many passes he threw, but his big plays helped him to a lot of touchdowns and yards. His 2.1 passing touchdowns per game ranked fifth among quarterbacks last season, while 9.7% of his completions turned into touchdowns, which was the third-most.
Darnold’s rushing production has been below average for a quarterback. Like most quarterbacks, he ran more earlier in his career. While he showed a willingness to run last season, he wasn’t very effective at it.
Projected utilization
The Vikings decided to stick with McCarthy for 2025 rather than outbidding other teams for Darnold. He chose the Seattle Seahawks, where their new head coach, Klint Kubiak, was Darnold’s passing game coordinator in 2023. The Seahawks traded away their incumbent starter, Geno Smith. Darnold hopes to successfully follow in Smith’s footsteps as a former high draft pick by the Jets. Smith bounced around the league and then found success in Seattle.
Both Darnold and Kubiak are used to plenty of downfield passes, making Darnold a nice fit. Kubiak isn’t used to his quarterbacks running very often, which also fits nicely with Darnold. One big change for him from a fantasy perspective is how much Kubiak runs the ball. He’s typically been run heavy, outside of when he had an elite receiving running back in Christian McCaffrey. The Vikings have consistently thrown more than most teams. We could see a decrease in Darnold's dropbacks unless the Seahawks are losing most of their games and need to throw to catch up.
The Seahawks spent their third-round pick on Jalen Milroe from Alabama. While Milroe is unlikely to take over as the Seahawks' starter this season, the Seahawks may have a package of plays for Milroe. He is one of the most athletic quarterbacks in the league, so a short-yardage and goal-line package would make sense. This could cut into Darnold’s playing time, and particularly his touchdown production, if Milroe is on the field when the Seahawks are close to scoring.
Impact of teammates
The Seahawks made several changes to their skill players this season, moving on from long-time wide receivers D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, adding veterans Cooper Kupp and Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and drafting Elijah Arroyo and Tory Horton. The skill players are a reason not to be as optimistic about Darnold relative to how well he played last season. None of the wide receivers are at the same level as Justin Jefferson, none of the tight ends are at T.J. Hockenson, even with him not being 100% last season, and none of the running backs have played as well as a receiver as Aaron Jones. The unit has the potential to be good, but a lot would need to go right for them to match the Minnesota Vikings‘ passing game this season.
The Seahawks ranked seventh-worst in pass-blocking grade last season. On the bright side, left tackle Charles Cross took a notable step in the right direction as both a pass protector and run blocker last season. The only other lineman who stayed healthy all season last year was Laken Tomlinson, who is no longer on the roster. The Seahawks spent their first-round pick on Grey Zabel, who should help, and ideally, the line can stay healthier this season.
While there is reason to believe the line can play better than last season, Darnold has been used to having an above-average line the previous three seasons, so for Darnold, this will still probably be a downgrade. Darnold already takes a lot of sacks, and that problem could be worse this season.
Bottom line
While Sam Darnold had a career year last season, he’s joining a Seahawks team that will be more focused on running the ball, and his supporting cast around him won’t be as strong. While he might be a fine late option in superflex leagues for those who want to wait for a second quarterback, it’s unlikely he will have many weeks as a top-12 fantasy quarterback, making it hard to trust him in most single-quarterback leagues.
Footnotes
- Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
- “Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
- Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
- As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
- Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
- Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
- The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
- All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
- Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.
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