Over three games and 12 quarters in two uniforms and three stadiums, Sam Darnold has been terrorized by the Los Angeles Rams.
Once maligned for seeing ghosts, Darnold has been unable to see Rams defenders.
On Thursday night in perhaps the greatest comeback in Seattle Seahawks chronicle, Darnold exorcised those demons by overcoming a pair of interceptions and a 16-point fourth-quarter deficit to captain his squad to a 38-37 overtime win against the Rams.
"Our story has stayed the same since day one with Sam," Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said. "It's everybody else that has different stories. This is the guy that we watch every day. It's the same guy every day no matter the circumstance. He's an ultimate competitor. He's a phenomenal leader. Just keeps fighting, just keeps plugging away. We weren't worried about one bit. That's Sam."
The scoreboard conveyed plenty of cause for concern, though, as the Rams scored 17 straight points with Darnold and the Seahawks punting once and turning it over twice in that span before mounting a comeback.
"I didn't think we played our best football," said Darnold, who finished the evening 22-of-34 passing with two touchdown passes, the two picks and threw two two-point conversions, including the game-winner to tight end Eric Saubert. "I certainly didn't play my best football. We've got a lot of work to do there, but at the end of the day we won. That team in that locker room, all the guys in that locker room, we work so hard for moments like this. Obviously, we've got a lot of work to do, and we're going to continue to push and get better, but those guys in the locker room deserve a win like that against a really, really good team."
Trailing, 30-14, with just more than 13 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Darnold and the Seahawks weren't just staring at an uphill battle, but at some daunting history. Prior to Thursday night, the Seahawks were 0-172 when trailing by 15-plus points in the fourth quarter.
That all changed with a frenetic finish in which Darnold also changed some of his personal history against the Rams.
Playing for the Minnesota Vikings in the playoffs against the Rams last year in Glendale, Arizona (Los Angeles' home game was moved due to Southern California wildfires), Darnold was 25 of 40 for 245 yards, a touchdown and an interception, while taking nine sacks and losing a fumble in a 27-9 defeat.
In Week 11 of this season, the Seahawks lost, 21-19, to the host Rams largely as a result of a whopping four Darnold interceptions.
Leading into Thursday's rematch, Darnold downplayed any significance about playing against the Rams, deeming them "just another opponent."
After a pair of second-half interceptions by Darnold, though, it looked very much as though the Rams were the bogeyman the quarterback couldn't get out from under his bed.
Darnold's determination and Rashid Shaheed's dynamism were able to buck the trend.
"I think for us, for me especially, I've had games like this in the past where I haven't played necessarily my best football and turned the ball over," Darnold said, "but at the end of the game you see yourself on the other side. It's not great when you have interceptions and turnovers, you want to limit that, but all you can do is fight back. And for us, I was just gonna continue to plug away and get the ball to open receivers and go through my reads."
After Darnold was picked by Rams defensive lineman Kobie Turner, the Seahawks defense forced a three-and-out. That set up Shaheed's histrionics on a punt return, as he screamed through the struggle bus that was the Rams special teams for a 58-yard touchdown.
On the ensuing two-point play, Darnold began to rewrite his narrative, finding former Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp for two points and a one-possession game.
After another Rams three-and-out and another big play from Shaheed -- a 31-yard sweep -- Darnold hit tight end AJ Barner for a 26-yard score. Just like that, it was a completely new ballgame, and that's when all chaos broke loose. Darnold and the Seahawks, now trailing, 30-28, opted for another two-point pass. This one caromed off the helmet of Los Angeles pass rusher Jared Verse, seemingly falling incomplete to the ground before Seattle running back Zach Charbonnet casually walked over and picked up the pigskin in the end zone. Upon review, Darnold was ruled to have thrown a backward pass, so the play was therefore a fumble and a subsequent two-point recovery by Charbonnet.
Three fruitless Seattle drives subsequently ended regulation and it seemed as though the brief Darnold hiccups of dramatic play had waned. But after the Rams marched 80 yards in eight plays on the opening possession of OT to take a 37-30 lead, Darnold bolted upright and went back to work. He hooked up with Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a 17-yarder and then Kupp for 21 to push the ball down the field. On first-and-goal from the 4, he found Smith-Njigba once more for a score.
With 3:13 on the clock in OT, the Seahawks went for the win, and Darnold got it, finding Saubert for the walk-off two-pointer -- the third successful attempt of the game for Seattle.
Despite the outcome and the script that went with it, Darnold maintained his belief that beating the Rams didn't have an abundance of underlying symbolism.
"They're a tough defense," he said. "They have really good scheme. They have good players that make it work. They've got a great offense, as well, that complements their defense really well. It's a good win. It's a good divisional win. But again, like I said, it wasn't pretty by any means. The turnovers, I've got to tone down. It's unacceptable. And we're just going to continue to find ways to get better."
There are two games left in the regular season for Darnold and the Seahawks, and at least one in the postseason. They will all be rather huge outings, so Darnold will have plenty more opportunity to show that he can be a big-game quarterback and his Week 16 showing wasn't an aberration.
Regardless of what fate lies ahead, he showed his fortitude Thursday and clearly has his teammates believing.
"He's always calm, cool and collected," running back Kenneth Walker III said. "He's never too high or too low. It's just like a clean slate, and that's him all around. That's been him since he got here. We're gonna have adversity throughout the games. He's just a playmaker."
