RENTON, Wash. -- Sam Darnold has a chance to join some rare company when the Seattle Seahawks face the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (1 p.m. ET, Fox).
According to Elias Sports Bureau, Tom Brady is the only quarterback since 1950 to win at least 10 games as a starter in consecutive seasons with different teams. Brady did in 2020 when he went 11-5 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers en route to winning Super Bowl LV a year after going 12-4 with the New England Patriots.
Darnold is on the cusp of that same feat, with his Seahawks off to a 9-3 start after he led the Minnesota Vikings to a 14-3 record a year ago. But if he's going to join Brady on Sunday, Darnold and the rest of Seattle's offense will have to be better against the blitz than they were a week ago.
The Seahawks beat Minnesota 26-0 at Lumen Field despite struggling against the barrage of pressure the Vikings' defense sent their way, at least early on. Darnold was sacked four times by his former team in the first half and fumbled on two of those plays, losing one. He also had four passes batted at the line of line of scrimmage and was fortunate to avoid interceptions on two of them.
"Number one, just credit to Minnesota with what they did schematically, a team that is ready to bring blitz," offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak said, "but we had some communication errors, technique errors and bad play calls. So a lot of things that we had to fix going into the second half."
The Seahawks curbed the issue after halftime, but Darnold dropped back only 11 more times as Seattle closed out the game on the ground. By the time he gave way to Drew Lock late in the fourth quarter, Darnold had posted a QBR of 18.3, by far his worst of the season.
That owed much to how the Seahawks struggled against the blitz. The Vikings sent extra rushers on 60% of Darnold's dropbacks, by far the highest blitz rate he's faced this season. Two of their sacks came on six-man rushes, and on the one that resulted in a lost fumble, Seattle appeared to botch a protection assignment as Dallas Turner was left unblocked. Minnesota showed blitz on the other two sacks before backing out and bringing four.
"When they did repeat a couple of those pressures, we executed at a high level," coach Mike Macdonald said. "We got a couple of good plays, which is good. You just want to be able to do that on the front end. Things we're going to learn from and play a little bit more decisively earlier in games, but a combination of good design and we've just got to play a little bit better on our end. It starts with the offensive line, making the right call, and then the quarterback being decisive on what to do with the ball, and we'll move on from there."
Darnold had only been sacked 11 times over Seattle's first 11 games. Macdonald said he liked the decisions Darnold made on a few of the four sacks he took against Minnesota. He seemed to be contrasting the discretion Darnold showed in eating the ball compared to the aggressive throws he attempted under pressure that led to three of his four interceptions in Seattle's loss to the Los Angeles Rams last month.
Darnold entered that Rams game leading the NFL in QBR (77.9). In the three games beginning with the Seahawks' loss at So-Fi Stadium - a stretch that also includes their win over the one-win Tennessee Titans in Nashville -- he ranks 25th (29.4).
Whether or not he can turn that around starting Sunday in Atlanta will depend largely on how well he and the rest of the Seahawks' offense handle another aggressive defense -- this time with the added challenge of having to communicate pre-snap amid the noise of an opposing team's stadium.
The Falcons' defense, coordinated by Jeff Ulbrich, ranks second in the NFL in blitz rate behind Minnesota, sending an extra rusher on 37% of opponents' dropbacks.
"They're an aggressive unit," Macdonald said. "They play hard. Brich does a really good job affecting the quarterback. They've got a good staff there and you can tell they're really well coached. They've got some young guys that are playing at high level, which tells me they're coaching the crap out of those guys."
Atlanta's 41 sacks are third most in the league.
"They are a really good blitzing team, just rush and coverage all working together," Darnold said. "Like Minnesota, and any team that pressures well and gets to the quarterback, they're really smart, they're tied together in the back end and with the pressures. Again, we've got to do a really good job during the week of preparing for everything and go from there."