Also, we lost a 4th game to the Chiefs and then went on an absolute TEAR to get to the Super Bowl

Sam,

The first half of this year was probably the best stretch of your life. You won a Super Bowl and got married. For an NFL quarterback, it's hard to imagine two bigger moments in one year. You went from being written off as a bust to winning a SB, and you earned every bit of it.

But football, like life, moves in cycles. The highs come fast and so do the lows. Right now you're in one of the hardest stretches of your career, and the expectations make it heavier. After a championship, everyone assumed you'd come out guns blazing and carry the team back to SB. Two straight losses, both shaped by your interceptions, have turned that conversation around quickly.

QB position runs on confidence. Every snap asks you to make split-second decisions: which read to trust, where to put the ball, when to climb the pocket, when to slide, and when to give up on a play. With full confidence, those decisions feel automatic and a quarterback can play at a level that looks effortless. Without it, the same decisions turn into panic.

From the outside, that's what it looks like is happening. The reads seem a beat late. Throws that used to come out on time are getting second-guessed. Movement in the pocket looks less instinctive and more cautious. None of that means you've lost your ability. It means you've lost some trust in it, and that happens to almost every QB at some point. You've been through it before, and you came out the other side better than ever.

My guess is the first thing you did after the last game was go back to the film room and spend more hours with your coaches. That's the natural instinct, but it may not be what you need right now. When confidence is the problem, grinding harder on the same thing can make it worse, because you go deeper into the doubt instead of stepping away from it.

So here's my suggestion: take a few days off from football. Take your wife back to your childhood home(assuming your parents still live there), or go to a familiar territory. Do things to take your mind away from the game - chop some wood, go fishing, throw darts at a local bar, go to a carnival, ride a roller coaster, anything that takes your mind off the game. Complete some small tasks. Concrete wins outside the game can rebuild the feeling of "I can do this", and get your confidence back up.

I believe you'll come back with much clearer mindset and with more confidence. A lot of season is still left, you can still get it done.

Kubiak's back half of last year is being completely skewed by Darnold's brilliant performance in the Rams playoff game and Walker's emergence due to necessity. For which the Rams ripped up their entire defense because they knew how ridiculous that Darnold performance was. But let's look at the actual Darnold stats for the back half of last season:

Final 9 regular season games with Kubiak:

9 TDs, 9 INTs and 4 Fumbles lost

That works out to 1.5 turnovers per game which is roughly where he is this year (1.75).

The Rams playoff game was absolutely brilliant, one of the great Seahawks QB performances in history. I won't even debate how great he was. But his SB stat line was one of the worst for a winning QB in Super Bowl history. He missed a lot of passes he should have made.

Edited for corrected stats across final 9 games. Point remains the same.

Pretty much what the title says. I’m a newish fan of football and I was watching the game on Thursday and I saw plenty of chances for Sam to at least run it. Does he not enjoy running it himself or not feel comfortable? And not just that game but previous games he at least had a few chances to run. I’m genuinely just wondering if he likes to run it himself or not.

I know everyone hates watching their team lose and especially in the ways that the Seahawks are losing. It seems obvious to you guys that the Seahawks' offense is the problem, and that stems from the OC, because so much of the roster is the same. Ok, but let's take a serious, honest look at what's changed and how the offense is doing right now.

Roster wise: Many Seahawks fans are getting a bit excited about the impending return of Anthony Bradford. Which is not a sentence I ever would have thought honest and utterable at any point in human history, but it's the truth. Forgetting PFF ratings, though he is just extremely strong and a pretty decent run blocker at times, Anthony Bradford is not a very good guard. I think we can be honest and say that. Which tends to mean that the guys who're backing him up must be far worse, and I think we've got proof positive now for anyone who at any point was wanting to see Bradford benched for Haynes, that the Seahawks' coaching staff was correct in not benching Bradford in 2025. The only other two major personnel changes on the roster were the loss of Kenneth Walker and the injury to Zach Charbonnet which has kept him out, which incited the drafting of Jadarian Price at the end of the 1st round in 2026.

I think the fact of how few roster changes there were, indicates to many that the staffing changes are where the issues are. Now, do you want to point at new RB coach Thomas Hammock, someone who seemed like a great hire at the outset? That is a genuine legitimate choice, as the Seahawks' RBs have not played great this year thus far and I'm pretty sure Velus Jones is the only one who has yet to fumble. But he doesn't have much control over the passing game (except for the RB blocking which hasnt been amazing and was faulty on some of the INTs Sam threw, not that that's a viable reason to take blame off of Sam), and the Seahawks have had a weak passing game for the past few weeks. So, Seahawks fans take aim at new OC Brian Fleury. I mean, the team's been unable to sustain drives quite often, been playing catchup as opponents get out to early head starts.

Now, this sort of diagnosis is pretty sound. After all, RB is widely viewed as the most replaceable position in the sport, and it was the only spot where there was a significant change on the roster, yet there is a massive change in terms of offensive results. So, fire Fleury train's been constructed.

That's well and great, but we can't stop there. Because while the results aren't working out, we still need to ensure we're not missing anything. The one position on the roster where anything meaningfully changed in the offseason, was RB. So how was that position performing in 2025, since we know the Seahawks were a way better team in the wins column that year?

Turns out, as many would assess, not great. The Seahawks ran it at the 4th highest clip in 2025, and that's after the dust has settled, at various points during the season they were even higher up there. How did they do? Their average was 4.1 ypc, which ends up as around the 24th best. So the Seahawks ran the ball a ton, were somewhat effective, as 4.1 ypc indicates, but not among the best. How has that changed, in the wake of the departure of Walker, who, as you may know if you've been keeping up, is now widely viewed as a top 5 RB in the entire league? Now, the 2026 Seahawks run it at the... 12th highest clip in the league, not quite as much, but now average 3.9 ypc, which is the 17th highest in the league right now. Not great either, but is it really that much worse?

I'd argue, considering that the Seahawks' top two RBs on the depth chart are out right now, and since the Seahawks have missed a starting lineman for the past few wees too, it's really not much different. That is to say, as in 2025, despite the fact that they do it a LOT, the Seahawks cannot run the ball for shit. And it's an RB agnostic thing, because one of the objectively pretty ineffective RBs that the Seahawks had as a workhorse in 2025 is now one of the most electric, high volume RBs in the NFL. So is it that the system now is particularly bad, or is it that the system before was not as good as Seahawks fans tend to think it was? How do you think Kubiak's offense would've performed with Emmanuel Wilson, Velus Jones, and George Holani as its spearhead in the backfield?

Before trying to dig more into that hypothetical, we need to dig further into how well the Kubiak offense was really performing as a whole. Because while the run game was evidently ineffective as a whole, and undersold how good the Seahawks' RBs were, everyone seems to remember the offense being much better than it is now. How about we start from the top?

What follows here was a bunch of boring stats and shit presented in a pretty random, rambling, and incoherent way, you can skip this paragraph if for whatever reason you've chosen to read this far it's just to have the numbers behind what I'm saying. The Seahawks' offense was.... 8th best in the entire league! yardage wise! More importantly the Seahawks were 3rd in the league with 483 points scored (that is including 6 TDs between the special teams and defense, though, so maybe it'd be knocked down a few notches without those). So it makes a ton of sense why everyone was so high on the 2025 Seahawks offense. Racked up a ton of yards, scored a ton of points. And after Thursday Night's game, the 2026 Seahawks offense is significantly down in per game averages compared to 2025. So even though, sure, the 2025 Seahawks didn't run great, despite running a lot, they put up a ton of points, and the 2026 Seahawks aren't doing that, need to get on Fleury for at the very least how he's coordinating the passing game. Speaking of which, we keep talking about the run game because the Mike Shanahan offense hinges on it, how did the pass game do and how is it doing now? The 2025 Seahawks were around 8th in passing YPG (averaging around 228), despite throwing the 28th most/4th fewest attempts (which, of course, includes the INT that Cooper Kupp threw against Houston) and around 8th in passer rating. Not bad, huh? That's how they achieved those scoring totals, it'd seem, except in truth the Seahawks were 18th in passing TDs thrown, and tied for 9th or 10th in rushing TDs. But 3rd in points, I mean, even discounting the non-offensive points, that is a huge amount. The 2026 Seahawks, up through week 5, are 5th in passing TDs (none scored in week 6 so that's going to drop by Monday) and tied for 17th-22nd in rushing TDs (1 scored week 6, that's going to drop down too). In points scored, the 2026 Seahawks are 6th in the league up through week 5 (again, with just 14 more scored week 6 you can expect that to come down, 134 through 5 weeks is just behind the Cowboys who have 138, Seahawks have 148 now since week 6). The 2026 Seahawks by comparison are sitting at a currently way lower ranked 225 pass ypg, a 3ypg difference from 2025. For completion's sake, the 2025 Seahawks were 2nd in Field Goals Made, which accounted for the gap in the fact that they were among the highest scoring teams points wise but around 12th in the league in offensive TDs. The 2026 Seahawks are tied for around 8th in Field Goals Made through week 5 (scored two more in week 6 so technically right now the Seahawks are 3rd, which is going to come down). The 2025 Seahawks rushed for an 8th ranked 123 ypg which is quite a bit above the 2026 Seahawks' current 107 ypg, but again, gotta factor in the actual RBs who're carrying the ball and the fact that the number of attempts per game did dip a bit.

What is the conclusion to all these stats and numbers? Well, the 2025 Seahawks ran the ball a ton, not that effectively, but threw the ball pretty well yardage and efficiency wise. The 2026 Seahawks run the ball a ton, also not that effectively, but not that much worse in that regard either, and throw the ball pretty much comparably well in absolute terms. Points wise, the 2026 Seahawks are also not doing bad. So what exactly is the ruckus all about? 2025 Seahawks offense may not have been so much fun to watch, but it was decently efficient and very much effective numbers wise, but that is also the case for the 2026 Seahawks. What people are upset about, then, is not something that can be explained by some difference in offensive production, but some other aspect to the offense's perceived impact on the fact that the 2025 Seahawks lost just 3 games between the entire 2025 regular and postseason, whereas the 2026 Seahawks have lost as many games within the first 6 weeks. Sure, the production itself took a downturn against the Broncos, but they have a top tier defense, and it was a road TNF game which are always very messy, in a stadium which is known to be a hard place to play due to altitude and whatnot. The culprit in this case is the elephant I have not addressed yet: turnovers.

Going back to what I said about RB coach Thomas Hammock, he is an obvious guy to point fingers at, because he's new and because the RBs the Seahawks have had the past few years have not lost any fumbles, and the Seahawks' current RBs have pretty much all been losing them. Sure, it may very well be the case that Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet have some unique ability to protect the rock (or some unique inability to fumble), they are both very strong, though I'd have to think the new guys are too, but it's certainly a possibility that this new RB coach is coaching something into the guys that makes them fumble, or improperly coaching them out of doing so. But while there have been quite a few fumbles, one big cause of turnovers is indeed the pass game, where the Seahawks are tied for having thrown the most INTs in the league right now (to be fair, this is post week 6 TNF but before Sunday/Monday's games, prior to week 6 TNF the Seahawks were... tied for 5th in INTs. And were/are tied for 6th in fumbles. That's good for being tied for 4th in most giveaways prior to week 5 TNF. With how well the defenses is playing and how many turnovers they are generating, the Seahawks were somehow +2 in turnover differential prior to week 6 TNF, however have unfortunately dipped into the negatives now. So how much of a change is this disastrous outcome? Well, the 2025 Seahawks finished the season... 2nd in giveaways with a whopping 28 (!!!) of them. But since Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet have never lost a fumble in their entire careers, how big is the difference in that respect? It's actually not huge, as the 2025 Seahawks led the entire NFL with 13 fumbles lost, and 15 INTs thrown between Sam Darnold's 14 and Cooper Kupp's aforementioned 1. In terms of turnovers, as much as Seahawks fans won't want to hear it, the Seahawks offense was vastly better in 2024 than in 2025 or 2026. It had way fewer giveaways, with around the 26th most in the league, even with the 16 INTs which were thrown, because the 2024 Seahawks fumbled about the 20th most. This is not to say the 2024 Seahawks offense was "better" per se - though Zach Charbonnet was young and Kenneth Walker missed quite a few games, the team scored 22.1 ppg, ranked around 18th, which is much lower than the post week 6 24.6 ppg the 2026 Seahawks scored or the 28.1 that the 2025 Seahawks ended the season scoring. Though the 2024 Seahawks did throw for more YPG with an also 8th ranked 236 (as opposed to 2025's 228, or 2026's 225), they ran for just 95 YPG which was 28th, on a 29th ranked number of carries, but for a surprisingly somewhat better rate of 4.2 ypc compared with 2025's 4.1 and 2026's 3.9, neither of which are that great.

So what am I actually saying here? Those who watch the Seahawks know that the Seahawks defense has, for the most part, picked up where it left off in 2025, however the Seahawks offense appears to be much worse. But as it turns out, the Seahawks offense isn't producing at that much worse of a clip, nor is it turning the ball over an unusually high amount. What this stuff indicates is not that things aren't as bad as Seahawks fans think they are, it means that things were *always* this bad and that it was just something Seahawks fans didn't find as upsetting because the results in the win column were more appetizing. And that's the part that everyone wants to transform, but to simply just say that it's because of the new OC the Seahawks hired, is extraordinarily myopic in my view. Because things haven't changed on the numbers front, to a degree that warrants his deriding. He's not "so much worse than Kubiak", the numbers show he's pretty much been keeping up with how Kubiak was doing. Even in points, the Seahaws are really not doing that bad. With no defensive or special teams points thus far, how many points have the Seahawks scored on offense (inc. PAT/FGM) in these first 6 weeks? 13, 31, 31, 30, 29, 14 for a total of 148, as mentioned before, and the 2025 Seahawks began with, on offense, 14, 24 (kickoff muffed by Iowa RB Kaleb Johnson for Seahawks TD), 38 (Tory Horton punt return TD), 23, 35, 20 for a total of 154. So even with the horrific offensive viewing experience that was the week 6 2026 Seahawks vs Broncos game, the Seahawks offense has scored just 6 fewer points in 2026 than the Seahawks offense had through 6 weeks of 2025.

What the Seahawks have right now, is pretty much what Fleury said he was going to bring when he was hired - offensive continuity. Sure, the numbers don't look great and the turnovers are high, but they were in 2025 too. There is just a bigger microscope on them now because the Seahawks aren't winning in spite of these anymore. When Zach Charbonnet, Anthony Bradford, and Jadarian Price return to the Seahawks' offense, over time it may turn out that the 2026 Seahawks offense is not generally much worse if at all than the 2025 Seahawks offense, though the results aren't great. But it goes back to the famous saying that you must never accept in a win what you would not in a loss - and Seahawks fans have become fat and happy with all these things that were occurring during a time of many wins, Now that the wins have stopped coming, it seems to Seahawks fans that the sky is plummeting toward the Earth. When in truth, nothing much has changed from that standpoint.

However, Seahawks fans are not crazy in thinking the Seahawks offense is worse than it was, this is true most notably in one area: 3rd down conversion rate. The 2025 Seahawks converted about 38% of 3rd downs through week 6, the 2026 Seahawks convert around 32.4% of 3rd downs thus far through week 6. This 6% difference is quite significant, but I do personally have to wonder how much this can be attributed to Fleury or the state of the RB position on the Seahawks' roster, though, and the two games played with a backup QB starting. I do not believe I can conclusively give an answer to that question yet.

So we have our problems: Seahawks not running the ball very effectively, not converting 3rd downs at a very high rate, and are turning it over a ton. Though in 2025 even though we improved on 3rd down throughout the season, we finished around 18th in the league, which is not great (even though we're worse than that now). So if I'm saying Seahawks fans can't just put the blame on Fleury, then what're the root causes of the problems, you might ask? In my opinion, we need to look at the roster the Seahawks have, which, yes, is very near the same as what they had last year. The offensive line, is a big one. John Benton is a great coach, but in my opinion, nobody rightward of Grey Zabel is very good. Seahawks fans love Abraham Lucas for whatever reason, but he is as mediocre as mediocre comes, and Jalen Sundell isn't any better. You need your center and right tackle to be competent on a good offensive line. The right guard situation is beyond bad, too. With just 2/5 offensive linemen that are good, it is hard to do much. More importantly, this is not an easy or feasible fix. The Seahawks' offense is currently, according to one source I found, allowing the 4th most pressures per game in the league, and in 2025, according to the same source, allowed the 2nd most. The 2026 Seahawks offense is currently the worst (yes, 32nd) in the NFL in time to pressure, and 2025 Seahawks were 22nd. So, better, but not by much. The 2026 Seahawks are slightly better in rushing yards before contact per attempt than the 2025 Seahawks, with 2.7 vs 2025's 2.5, however, as you'd expect given the Seahawks' RB situation, the 2026 Seahawks have a markedly worse yards after contact per attempt with 1.2, as compared with 2025 Seahawks' 1.7 (for those curious, 2026 Seahawks' current 1.2 YACPA is ranked 29th whereas 2025 Seahawks' 1.7 YACPA was ranked 26th).

The final and most obvious turnover culprit is Seahawks QB Sam Darnold. And I'd love to say he's had some huge regression this year, but he has not. In 2025, he led the QBs of the NFL with 20 turnovers in the regular season, whereas in 2026 he was 7th in the NFL through 5 weeks and 4th right now with his and Nix's week 6 stats incorporated. If it weren't for the fact that he missed pretty much two weeks' worth of games, you could say that he has almost improved somewhat.

So in conclusion, if you want to compare the 2026 Seahawks' offense with the 2025 Seahawks, it is not converting 3rd downs at quite as high of a rate, however the actual production and scoring of the 2026 Seahawks' offense is roughly in line with the 2025 Seahawks through 6 weeks, and the turnovers are in line with what the 2025 Seahawks did overall too, though of course they're a bit more heavily concentrated over the past few weeks than they were at this point in 2025 (though remember, Sam Darnold had 4 INTs on his own in one week in 2025, so it's not as though a high concentration of turnovers is new for him). The offense is not that much worse overall than the 2025 Seahawks' was, and if that's the barometer that Seahawks fans have set for a high standard of offense, then they should be satisfied with what the Seahawks' offense has done so far. However, I expect many Seahawks fans would now prefer that the offense was better than the 2025 Seahawks' was. And that is something that would take sweeping changes to fix - replacements on the offensive line and a replacement at QB are speculatively the biggest things that'd need to change, but not things that can feasibly be improved in the course of the 2026 season. It's easy to want to change one thing and fix everything, the truth is that no one singular thing is the cause for the many problems the Seahawks offense has, and we have no evidence whatsoever that Seahawks OC Brian Fleury is himself a cause for some sort of massive regression, which does not exist on the fronts that he has much control over. When the Seahawks offense is healthy once more, Seahawks fans may expect some improvements in YPC in the run game, maybe somewhat better YACPA and YBCPA, and, one would hope, a slight improvement in 3rd down conversion rate. But a massive, season changing improvement is a very unrealistic expectation, and one which, if not met, is not an indication that Brian Fleury's offense is significantly worse than the 2025 Seahawks' was.

TLDR: The 2025 Seahawks offense was not as much better than the 2026 Seahawks' as Seahawks fans think it was, the turnovers were there, the run game inefficiency was there, the points scored on offense were roughly the same. Seahawks fans grew accustomed to accepting in wins what they are now frustrated with in losses, and the truth is not much actually changed for the worse. The problems are the same, even if the OC changed, and firing the OC is not a decision warranted by the evidence at hand. Frustrated Seahawks fans ought to direct their ire towards Sam Darnold (who, by the way, must be better than Drew Lock, otherwise he'd have been benched in favor of Drew by now), the Seahawks OL (which was constructed by John Schneider), and the offensive assistants who've been with the Seahawks since the Kubiak season.

TLDRTLDR: Offense same but lose now when win before, one guy fired change nothing

Sam Darnold final drive performance when trailing in regulation or in OT:

2025

Vs SF: Loss, Fumble

Vs TB: Loss, INT

At LAR: Loss, Missed FG

Vs Indy: Win, FG

Vs LAR: Win, TD+2 Pt in OT

2026

At Was: Loss, INT. Pick 6 essentially made it a final drive.

Vs SF: Loss, Turnover on Downs

At Den: Loss, INT in OT

2-6 which also happen to be all 6 losses Seattle has had the past 2 years. 12 total turnovers in the 6 losses. That's the opposite of clutch.

Just an interesting stat I heard from Cowherd. I think it helps bring things into perspective.

Our run game is struggling, but I'm sick of seeing 12s regurgitating this dumb line about how letting K9 walk was a huge blunder.

Super Bowl MVP? Who cares? He had 161 scrimmage yards and no TDs. Plenty of those touches came late, grinding the clock out against a shell-shocked Pats team. They couldn't give the MVP to the Dark Side or J-money because reasons.

I also remember plenty of regular season games where I was completely baffled by K9's running style. He has always been a streaky home run threat. He would get washed to the sidelines or caught loitering behind the line of scrimmage six or seven times for every 10+ yard impact run. I know I wasn't the only 12 groaning for Charb's more reliable 3 yards and cloud of dust.

K9 has had success with the Chiefs. Good on him. It's a good streak but we've seen him go frosty too. I reject the idea that letting him walk wasn't the right call. Anyone who disagrees wasn't watching Hawks games close enough.

That is Jon Kitna for all the youngling Hawks fans out there...

Can't post the X link and it isn't on Bluesky yet.

Not from Hawkblogger, my own POV parsing tea leaves post-game from Mike: I get the sense Mike is more annoyed at the overall lack of cohesion from the offense, and he doesn't believe just a QB change is going to magically make it look functional. Nothing looks functional from the RBs to the OL to the QB.

Also I think fans should consider once you bench Darnold, that's basically it, and it looks very embarrassing if Lock also struggles (And somehow got injured and was limited in practice)

Feels like the heat is first on Fluery before Darnold.

holani is tryna block an edge while 4 linemen pancake 1 dude?

All the recent talk about K9 has me feeling like im taking crazy pills and it seems like complete revisionist history.

The 4 years we had him it felt like I was constantly defending him and people were not happy with his performance.

He always showed flashes of greatness but would frequently lose yards running backwards. He never got over 1100 rushing yards in a season, he only played one full season but had a great stretch the last few games he played for us and popped off in the super bowl.

He is a great player but the season he is playing in KC is far better than he has ever played for us and production wise the numbers werent there for us.