THE CLAIM
In a move I suspected would come if Sam Darnold stumbled at all, the Grim Reapers are out following a disappointing performance against the Denver Broncos that dropped the Seattle Seahawks to 3-3 overall, and 1-3 in games when Darnold was the primary quarterback.
In those other two games, Drew Lock led them to victory, so the question becomes: Do the Seahawks have a better chance of winning with Lock than Darnold?
We have troublemakers like PFT innocently framing the question as whether the Seahawks “need to consider” whether Lock should be the starter - as if teams aren’t “considering” all options at all times.
PFF got into the shit-stirring game with this tweet displaying the two quarterbacks’ stats side-by-side. I’m sure this was done with no subtext as to what actions these stats point to the Seahawks taking.
But we don’t play in the engagement baiting game here (or only modestly), and the only way to answer the question is to dig into the evidence of who will be the best option for the Seahawks going forward: Darnold or Lock?
THE VERDICT - FALSE
You can’t make a change from your quarterback four games into a season after winning a Super Bowl, and the objective measures to project future efficiency point to Darnold being the superior option. Narratives be damned.
Darnold has struggled mightily this year in higher variance situations, with especially poor situational mistakes taking away the Seahawks’ chance to win. Unfortunately, awful-looking mistakes are part of the Sam Darnold Experience, and he usually makes up for them with high-end gains in the other direction.
THE EVIDENCE
Much of Darnold’s struggles this year come down to his failures on third downs.
Darnold has the worst third-down EPA efficiency this season (among 25 quarterbacks with 40+ dropbacks), losing an average of -0.44 expected points per dropback, which is relatively worse than his poor conversion rate (30.4%, 19th of 25).
He was particularly bad on third downs in Denver Week 6, throwing two killer interceptions that each cost the Seahawks 30%+ win probability, one coming near the end of regulation, the other in overtime.
But if we look into Darnold’s play on early downs, which tend to be more stable and representative of overall play, he’s been slightly below average in 2026, not awful.
In fact, he occupies the same territory on the plot as Bo Nix and Aaron Rodgers, whose teams both have winning records at a combined 7-4. His early down dropback efficiency has only been marginally worse than those of Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Drake Maye, but those quarterbacks have been strong performers on the higher leverage late downs.
It’s not just the EPA losses, but also the dramatic nature of the win probability lost on his mistakes, with his normally elevated win probability lost on these errors exploding on a four-game trailing basis this season.
However, if we look back at Darnold’s early/late splits last year, there is a similar trend to 2026, though not nearly the same degree. Darnold was awesome on early downs, ranking only behind leading MVP candidates Drake Maye and Matthew Stafford in EPA efficiency, though somewhat below average on late downs.
