How Sam Darnold handled 11th-hour injury, led Seahawks to playoff rout of 49ers

The Seahawks’ locker room at their home stadium is large.

Gigantic.

So large, in fact, their Pro Bowl quarterback can throw passes while hiding in there.

That’s what Sam Darnold did about 90 minutes before kickoff Saturday of Seattle’s NFC divisional playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers at rockin’ Lumen Field.

At that time, veteran backup Drew Lock and rookie Jalen Milroe were the only Seahawks quarterbacks on the field outside for early pregame warmups. Darnold is normally out there with them at that time, in sweats throwing passes to teammates before they all go back inside, put on their full pads and return to the field for full warm-ups about a half hour before kickoff.

But this was no normal last 48 hours for Darnold.

Start of my ⁦@thenewstribune⁩ analysis from the field on how—and where, out of sight—Sam Darnold knew he could play tonight with an oblique injury, before the #Seahawks boat-raved the 49ers out of the playoffs. pic.twitter.com/103oSjANoA

— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) January 18, 2026

He had injured his oblique on his left, non-throwing side throwing a pass in practice Thursday. He hadn’t thrown since. At 90 minutes before the game Saturday, the Seahawks had to determine their six inactive players. They needed to see Darnold test his injury by throwing. But they didn’t need the 49ers and everyone else seeing that.

So Darnold stayed inside, in the palatial spread of the Lumen Field locker room.

“We have a ton of space. I was just throwing back and forth, got warm,” Darnold said later. He could throw well enough to play, he and his team determined. So he went out for the full pregame warmups with his teammates about 40 minutes before kickoff. Then he started, and finished, the Seahawks’ 41-6 obliteration of the 49ers to put Seattle into its first NFC championship game in 11 years next weekend.

“Yeah, so obviously I didn’t go out for the non-padded warm-up. I think that kind of stirred some questions, which was funny,” Darnold said. “No, I got to throw in here, and did the same thing, did my routine in here.

“Once I put the pads on and got that padded warm-up, I wanted to be rolling. I didn’t want to waste any time getting warm on the field and coming in, having 40 minutes to get warm again and then go back out.

“I just wanted to get warm once, and then go back out there in the pads.”

Sam Darnold’s stiff early start

His first attempt in the game: A deep pass was 20-plus yards down the seam he intended to throw to Jaxon Smith-Njigba breaking free behind his defender for a possible touchdown. Darnold’s throw died softly, well short of the receiver and the 49ers defensive back.

That seemed to be on the quarterback’s mind later in that first offensive possession for Seattle. Darnold had Smith-Njigba breaking open deep early on a roll-out pass to the QB’s right. It would have been another 20-plus-yard throw. Instead, Darnold chose to throw an 8-yard pass to Cooper Kupp.

The drive ended with a field goal by Jason Myers two plays later. Thanks to that and Rashid Shaheed’s 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown on the opening play, Seattle led 10-0 not even 10 minutes into the game.

After he sat down on the bench following Myers’ field goal, Darnold had a Seahawks assistant adjust his padding around his torso protecting his left oblique injury. It was a quick adjustment. He didn’t need to take off his shoulder pads or jersey or anything. In the media timeout between the first and second quarters, while the 49ers had the ball, Darnold was pacing the sidelines instead of sitting on the Seahawks bench as he normally does when Seattle’s defense is on the field. Darnold was doing high-knee steps, attempting to keep his torso loosened on the 45-degree Seattle evening.

What was his pain level during the game?

“I felt great,” was all Darnold said.

He didn’t say whether he received a pain-killing injection into the pained muscle. But he likely did.

He completed 12 of 17 passes for a season-low 124 yards with a touchdown dart to Smith-Njigba in the first quarter. The Seahawks didn’t need him throwing much, not after jumping to a two-score lead before the game was 10 minutes old.

Not with Kenneth Walker rushing for 116 yards and three touchdowns. Not with Seattle’s running game totaling 175 yards, the fourth straight game with at least 160.

And not with coach Mike Macdonald’s defense annihilating coach Kyle Shanahan and quarterback Brock Purdy’s 49ers offense for the second time in 14 days. Macdonald assessed Darnold’s night as “tremendous, tremendous.”

The coach said his QB managed the game, on a night that’s all he needed to do.

For the second time in two wins over the Niners, the NFL leader with 20 turnovers this season did not turn the ball over once.

“Couple of plays early that I think to get in the swing of things. But I say ‘manage’ the game as a very high-powered compliment,” Macdonald said. “Just throwing it on time, taking care of the ball, making the plays when we need to.

“I think there’s going to be some explosives out there that maybe we could get to. But, shoot, I thought there’s a lot of operation stuff that he did that really helped us, as well.”

Darnold said he wasn’t limited, at all.

“No, I felt really good,” he said. “Felt really good.”

Smith-Njigba said he knew Darnold was AOK on his touchdown throw to him in the second quarter. Darnold zipped it with his best velocity of the night, past the safety and before 49ers cornerback Darrell Luter could react back to the ball in the back left of the end zone.

“Honestly, it surprised me. Not how hard he threw it because he was hurt. I was like, ‘Wow, how’s he going to fit it through this window,” Smith-Njigba said.

“And he happened to do it, again. That was awesome.”

The 4-yard score past Luter came after a defensive pass-interference by San Francisco’s fill-in starting safety Marques Sigle, pulling down Shaheed. “I mean, I had confidence (in Sam),” Smith-Njigba said. “When he stepped out, put his helmet on, put his cleats on, I was like, ‘We’re ready to roll.’

“I didn’t have any second-guesses or anything.”

It was 17-0 Seattle 13 minutes in the game. And that was that, an eighth consecutive victory and 13th win in 14 games to get one home win from the Super Bowl.

“He was telling me he was good. And apparently he didn’t lie to me,” said Smith-Njigba, the NFL’s leader with 1,793 yards this season catching Darnold’s throws.

“He played his...he played great. Of course, it’s going to be a media thing and big (deal) all around .But he gave me the OK, the thumbs up, and I knew we were good.”

Way good. All good, for the 15-3 Seahawks.

It was the 28-year-old Darnold’s first postseason win in the eighth season for five NFL teams for the former third-overall draft choice by the Jets. Seahawks Pro Bowl defensive lineman Leonard Williams was Darnold’s teammate on the 2018 and ‘19 Jets. Those were the quarterback’s rookie and second NFL seasons in which Darnold went 11-15 as a starter.

“He means a lot to this team,” Williams said late Saturday night. “I’ve been around him in college (Williams played for USC before Darnold did). I’ve been around him early in his career on the Jets. And I think as soon as I saw him in the building here, I saw a dedicated guy. He’s dedicated to his craft, dedicated to the work, dedicated to this organization.

“And he’s just a special leader on this team.”

No, Darnold’s first Seahawks season since signing a three-year, $100.5 million contract in Seattle’s bold free-agent risk last spring isn’t going too badly.

Thanks for asking.

“It’s huge. I don’t take it for granted whatsoever,” Darnold said.

“It’s just a special group. I think that’s the biggest thing, and that’s why it means so much. Just the way those guys are in the locker room, ever since I got here. They were tight before I got here, obviously, but just the way that they took me in as one of their own.

“And that locker room and these coaches, you know, just the way that we play together. That’s the reason why I play this game. And they’ve made it really easy for me to come in here ever since I did in April to be able to help lead this team and drive the ball down the field, score touchdowns, all those things.”