How Seahawks started over at QB with Sam Darnold - ESPN

RENTON, Wash. — The Seattle Seahawks had just introduced Sam Darnold inside a packed auditorium at team headquarters on March 13 when general manager John Schneider, standing in front of reporters in an adjacent hallway, did his best to explain how their quarterback change had come to be.

He began by exhaling sharply, then pausing for several seconds.

Six days earlier, Schneider agreed to trade Geno Smith to the Las Vegas Raiders after a brief attempt to sign him to an extension. That led the GM and coach Mike Macdonald to turn their focus to Darnold, a free agent after his breakthrough Pro Bowl season with the Minnesota Vikings.

Ten months later, those two decisions stand near the top of the list of reasons why the Seahawks entered the playoffs as betting favorites to win Super Bowl LX, having claimed the NFC's No. 1 seed after a 14-3 regular season. Their quest for the franchise's second Lombardi Trophy begins Saturday (8 p.m. ET, Fox), when they host the San Francisco 49ers at Lumen Field in the divisional round.

How far the Seahawks go in the playoffs will depend largely on whether Darnold can avoid the mistakes that plagued him over the second half of the season. He played well enough — despite finishing with a league-high 20 turnovers — to make the Pro Bowl. He also made some NFL history along the way. Darnold joined Tom Brady (2019-20) as the only quarterback to win at least 14 games in consecutive seasons with different teams.

The Seahawks couldn't have hoped for much more from Darnold, 28, when they signed him to a three-year, $100.5 million contract to replace Smith, 35.

But on the day that deal became official, the pressing questions weren't just about the Seahawks' new quarterback but about how they arrived