The Seattle Seahawks won their opener and still spent the next 24 hours holding their breath. Sam Darnold went down on the very first possession against the New England Patriots and never came back.
The good news landed quickly. Darnold underwent an MRI on his right hip and a fracture was ruled out, with tests pointing to an unusual muscle strain in the hip area rather than anything structural. ESPN reported he received really good news on the scan.
The less good news: he is expected to miss Week 2 against the Arizona Cardinals.
Credit the schedule makers here, because Seattle caught a break most teams never get. The Seahawks opened on a Wednesday night, which gives Darnold a longer runway than a normal week. Even if he sits out the Cardinals game, Week 3 becomes realistic.
Drew Lock is the guy in the meantime, and he earned the benefit of the doubt on Wednesday. Lock entered in the first quarter, started slow, and then did exactly enough to drag Seattle to a 13-10 win over a Patriots team that had the game sitting in its lap.
That is the whole point of carrying a veteran backup. Lock did not have to be great. He had to avoid the disaster, stay patient, and let the defense take over, which it did by picking off Drake Maye three times in the fourth quarter.
Now he gets a full week of practice as the clear starter, which is a meaningfully different assignment than cold relief duty. Arizona is a division game, on a short competitive margin, and Seattle cannot afford to treat it as a throwaway.
Here is the honest assessment of Seattle’s situation. Losing your starting quarterback one drive into the season is the kind of thing that sinks a year, and the Seahawks instead walked out 1-0 with a win over the team they met in the Super Bowl. That is about as good an outcome as the worst possible start can produce.
Hip injuries deserve caution, though. Muscle strains in that area have a habit of lingering, especially for a quarterback who relies on moving in the pocket and throwing off platform. Seattle should resist the urge to rush him back for a Week 2 division game when the Wednesday opener already bought them extra recovery time.
The smart play is sitting Darnold against Arizona, letting Lock handle it, and having Darnold fully right for the long haul. One game of Drew Lock is survivable. A recurring hip issue that costs Darnold chunks of October and November is not.
Mike Macdonald has built a team that can win ugly, which is exactly the profile you want when the quarterback position gets shaky. The defense travels, the running game holds up, and the margins are tight enough that competent quarterback play gets the job done.
So file this one under relief. Seattle opened the season by losing its starting quarterback and still won, got clean imaging results, and will likely have Darnold back shortly. There are far worse versions of this story, and the Seahawks avoided all of them.
Week 2 belongs to Lock. Expect Darnold back not long after.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.