How Sam Darnold's one season with the 49ers prepared him for the Seahawks

RENTON, Wash. -- The play unfolded precisely how Sam Darnold, Kyle Shanahan and the San Francisco 49ers drew it up.

It was midway through the fourth quarter of their two-touchdown loss on Christmas night in 2023.

To that point, the game had been dominated by the Baltimore Ravens' top-ranked defense, coordinated by future Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald.

Down 33-12, Darnold took over for a banged-up Brock Purdy and got the 49ers down to Baltimore's 12. That's where Shanahan saw an opportunity for the backup quarterback to exploit a certain defensive look they had prepared for extensively.

Based on Roquan Smith's pre-snap alignment and the type of zone coverage it suggested, Darnold would be able to hit receiver Ronnie Bell on a slant route between the Baltimore linebacker and the safety who was playing over the top. Darnold took the shotgun snap, hit his back foot and threw over Smith's head to a leaping Bell for a touchdown.

"It was exactly how we talked about it in practice," Darnold said. "Exactly how we repped it."

Twenty months later, the Seahawks' new quarterback cited that play and one that would immediately follow as moments where he could tell that everything he was learning during his career-altering season with the 49ers was starting to click.

Still facing Ravens starters on the next possession, he hit receiver Brandon Aiyuk for 24 yards, putting the ball on the money despite not having time to set his feet with an unblocked blitzer in his face. Darnold would take the 49ers down to Baltimore's 1, threatening to turn a blowout into a nail-biter before his desperation throw on fourth down was intercepted.

San Francisco's comeback bid was over -- but Darnold's personal comeback was underway.

The third overall pick in 2018, Darnold had failed to cement his place as the starter with the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers before landing in San Francisco for a backup stint that would help kick-start his turnaround. His relief appearance on Christmas night affirmed what he'd been sensing while soaking in knowledge from Shanahan and the 49ers' offensive staff, and while watching the way Purdy prudently executed their scheme: Darnold was starting to put his talent together.

"That was like, 'OK, I can do that,'' Darnold said in an interview with ESPN. "I can lead this team if I needed to."

After his reset season in San Francisco, Darnold signed a one-year, $10 million deal with the Minnesota Vikings in March 2024 with no assurance he'd be their starter. But when rookie J.J. McCarthy suffered a season-ending knee injury in preseason, Darnold stepped up, delivering a Pro Bowl season that saw him throw for 4,319 yards and 35 touchdown passes, lead five game-winning drives and generate some MVP buzz before faltering in the final two games.

"He got the keys to the team, and to be in that situation also when he had a good, upcoming team that had a lot of talent, that had a good coaching staff and it was kind of the perfect time for him and he was so ready for it," Shanahan said in an interview with ESPN. "That's why I thought he had one of the better years in the league last year."

With the Vikings turning back to McCarthy, Darnold signed a three-year, $100.5 million deal with the Seahawks, who had identified him as their preferred replacement for Geno Smith. Darnold's quest to prove that his resurgence in Minnesota wasn't just a one-year wonder begins Sunday, when they open their season against the 49ers at Lumen Field (4:05 p.m. ET, Fox).

But among the reasons the Seahawks believe Darnold's career has been turned around for good is because his 2024 breakthrough was hardly an overnight development. It was set in motion during the seminal season he spent with Shanahan and Purdy in San Francisco.

"When you're that good of a quarterback, you rarely get a chance to just sit and soak things in," Shanahan said. "And when you do, you kind of get more frustrated because you just want to be out there competing. And I know it was hard for him to do it, but he did it the right way and I think he just was so much more prepared for his next opportunity. And I thought that showed in Minnesota."

THE DARNOLD-LED JETS were down 21-0 in the second quarter of their 2020 season opener at the Bills when he gave in to his young-quarterback whims. With the pocket collapsing, he escaped to his left, running straight toward the sideline with his eyes downfield. As he approached the numbers, he twisted his upper body and unleashed a heave back toward the hashmarks, both feet off the ground as the ball left his hand.

Predictably, it was picked.

The interception typified the kind of mistake Darnold would make in his Jets days while, as he saw it, pressing to overcome an early deficit or an offensive rut. He learned eventually that plays he'd made in high school and at USC were harder to pull off in the pros.

"I felt like I could do that at ease, and you get to this level and it's not that easy," Darnold said. "That's where kind of the troubles came a little bit early in my career ... just thinking I could run around and make plays if something wasn't there."

Darnold threw 39 interceptions (to 45 touchdown passes) in 83 games over his first three seasons with the Jets, who went 35-38 in his starts before they traded him to Carolina in 2021. He threw 16 picks (with 16 TDs) in 18 games with the Panthers, going 8-9 as a starter.

"Sam's such a talented guy and that's why he was going to get thrown into the fire right away," Shanahan said. "He was never really on a team in a position to win. And when that happens, you start to create bad habits ... you start forcing things, you start making stuff up. And when you have a guy who has the ability of Sam, that stuff's going to happen."

Darnold had hardly arrived in San Francisco as a complete reclamation project. After a forgettable debut season in Carolina that included a five-game stint on injured reserve, he reclaimed the starting job he had lost to Baker Mayfield over the summer, taking over a 3-8 team in November and going 4-2 in his six starts.

But there were bad habits to ditch and basics to get back to. When 49ers quarterbacks coach Brian Griese talked with Darnold as he was weighing his options in the spring of 2023, that was part of the plan Griese laid out.

"I was able to talk with him about coming to San Francisco as an opportunity to really get back to fundamentals and get the foundation back under his game," Griese told ESPN, "starting with his footwork and his reads and progressions and how we read defenses ... really just see if we could build him back and see how good of a quarterback he could be.

"That was only going to work if he came in and he was humble and showed humility, because Brock was our guy."

Purdy was working his way back from a torn elbow ligament he had suffered in the NFC Championship Game loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, and with no guarantee he'd be ready by September, Darnold had another reason to see San Francisco as an ideal fit. There was the opportunity to learn under Shanahan and his staff, which included current Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak (then the 49ers' passing game coordinator) as well as Griese. There might also be an opportunity to play, albeit as a placeholder.

Darnold joined the 49ers on a one-year, $4.5 million deal. But with Purdy making it back by Week 1, Darnold's only start came in the regular-season finale (16-of-26, 189 yards, two total TDs, one lost fumble) against the Los Angeles Rams, when San Francisco rested several starters having already secured the NFC's No. 1 seed.

For Darnold, sitting back and watching for most of that season proved beneficial in its own way.

"I was able to gather so much information about just what it took to play quarterback in that system," he said. "... Throughout the whole experience, there's so many things I learned, but I think that was the biggest takeaway for me was how much I was studying off the field to be able to prepare myself to go in and play if I needed to on Sundays."

Darnold declined to discuss how San Francisco's coaching differed from what he'd gotten in his previous two NFL stops, but the way he described its revelatory impact lent credence to a belief held inside the Seahawks organization about how his early-career struggles and his renaissance in San Francisco and Minnesota owed much to what -- and how -- he was being taught.

Darnold and the other 49ers quarterbacks would watch film of every practice with Shanahan, learning from one of the game's brightest offensive minds.

"We would talk about reads, but he would talk about defenses," Darnold said. "... It was anticipating where we were going in the progression based on the coverage. And when we started talking about progressions and scheme like that, that was really eye-opening for me."

As was his up-close look at how Purdy played.

Despite not having prototypical size or a golden arm, Purdy has gone from the last pick in the draft to the owner of a new $265 million contract in three seasons, with a Pro Bowl nod and a Super Bowl appearance in between. He's gotten there by buying into Shanahan's system and operating like a point guard who gets the ball in the hands of his playmakers, eschewing the careless impulses that used to get the best of Darnold.

"Don't get me wrong, Brock can make some plays now -- off-schedule, scrambling around, running for touchdowns, being able to throw touchdowns on the run, all that stuff," Darnold said. "But he was just consistently, no matter what the situation was, he was going through [his] progressions, if it's not there, check the ball down. He was doing that every single play ...

"To be able to learn from him ... and the way that he played was eye-opening for me."

Griese saw it all come together when Darnold relieved Purdy on Christmas night.

"It was really good to see him be able to marry everything that he had learned and the foundation that he had built with the obvious arm talent and the ability to move around," Griese said, "and for all that to come together and for the light bulb to kind of go on for him that all his time, energy and effort was paying off."

That light bulb would burn brighter the following season in Minnesota with coach Kevin O'Connell and a strong group of offensive talent.

The remade Darnold saw his touchdown-to-interception ratio improve from 1.04 (40th in NFL) over his first four seasons to 2.92 (10th) in 2024. His completion percentage in that same span went from 59.8% (38th) to 66.2% (16th). His QBR went from 40.9 (37th) to 57.3 (14th).

One of his five game-winning drives came against Seattle in December amid Minnesota's 14-2 start, before Darnold and the offense collapsed over the final two games. Even then, he would have played his way into the Vikings' long-term plans had they not been committed to McCarthy, whom they had traded up to take 10th overall.

At Darnold's introductory news conference in Seattle at Seahawks headquarters in March, Kubiak cited his resurgence as an example of how talented quarterbacks are sometimes written off too quickly.

"Some guys are mentally tough enough to come back and fight through it and I'm sitting next to one of them," Kubiak said. "... It's really impressive to be that kind of a fighter and to stay in the fight and when you get your chance again, be ready. Sam was ready, and Sam earned this job here."

"LISTEN TO YOUR feet."

The phrase has been printed onto Seahawks team-issued shirts and hats, and Darnold hears it so often that it might be ringing in his ears. Part of the vernacular of coaches who run Shanahan's system, Kubiak has brought it with him from San Francisco to Seattle as the Seahawks' new coordinator.

To "listen to your feet" as you go through your progressions is to let them tell you when it's time to throw or bail.

"They can help you tell whether somebody's open in the timing of the play or not," Griese said. "So you might plan to throw one route and your first hitch will go to the next route, second hitch will go to a checkdown, and you really don't have more than two hitches in the NFL. So after that, really, the ball's gotta go -- or you gotta go."

Therein lies one of the keys to whether Darnold can succeed in Seattle. He'll have to play on time, something he struggled to consistently do early in his career and over the Vikings' final two games of last season. That's when Darnold's holding onto the ball combined with declining offensive line play led to a collapse that included a nine-sack nightmare in their playoff loss to the Rams.

But Darnold has been listening to his feet.

"He's getting the ball out fast, he's accurate, he's making fast decisions," Macdonald said midway through training camp. "Operationally, we're still working through a couple things, but I was just telling him yesterday, it's a pain in the butt to pressure him because the ball's out and it's hard to get to him."

Players on both sides of the ball have noted the same.

"As a receiver, I love that," said Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Darnold's top target. "I would rather the ball be halfway there while I break. So yeah, he's doing a great job with that, and I think it really knifes the defense and just gets them off balance."

Darnold doesn't have to reclaim a spot in the MVP conversation in 2025, but he can't afford to flop either. Like all Seahawks contracts, his includes no fully-guaranteed money beyond the first season, giving Seattle an out after 2025 if he were to revert back to the Darnold of old.

But there's been nothing to suggest that the new Darnold, forged during the reset season he spent in San Francisco that preceded his rebirth in Minnesota, isn't here to stay.

"He's always had the talent," Griese said. "He's learned to trust and I know that the players and the coaches will run through a wall for him because of who he is as a teammate. So he's got everything he needs now to go and have success."

ESPN's Nick Wagoner contributed to this story.