Playing for his fifth NFL team in eight years, 28-year-old quarterback Sam Darnold is preparing to lead the Seattle Seahawks to a potential championship title in Super Bowl 60 on Sunday — a moment that’s required a high degree of mental resilience to reach, he told The Athletic on Friday.
Darnold’s career started with high expectations as the No. 3 draft pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. Instead, he lost more games than he won over his first three seasons, got traded and ultimately served as a backup quarterback for multiple teams over multiple years. He won a starting job with the Minnesota Vikings in 2024 after his primary competition for the role suffered a season-ending knee injury, and to many pundits’ surprise, led the Vikings to a 14-3 record that season.
His performance led to a three-year contract with Seattle worth $100.5 million in March. Now on the precipice of an NFL championship, Darnold says the resilient mindset he first learned from his parents helped him overcome his own mistakes and self-doubt to resurrect his career.
“My dad worked as a plumber, and my mom is a PE teacher, and it never mattered what kind of day they had. They were always consistent for me and my sister,” Darnold told The Athletic. ”[It] didn’t matter what had happened at work; my dad was always out there playing catch with me afterwards. So, you know, I feel like I just naturally kind of learned to be resilient.”
