The Seattle Seahawks needed about three minutes to turn their Super Bowl defense into a crisis. They needed a few hours after the game to breathe again.
Sam Darnold went down on the opening drive Wednesday night at Lumen Field. On a third-and-6, Patriots defensive end Dre’Mont Jones got home and drove Darnold into the turf. The reigning Super Bowl MVP came up limping badly, went into the blue medical tent, and headed straight to the locker room from there.
That is the worst possible opening sequence for a defending champion. Three minutes into a new season, your franchise quarterback is gone with a hip injury.
Then the news got better.
Adam Schefter of ESPN reported after the game that Darnold was transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for a CT scan on the hip. The initial results did not spell out the full extent of the damage, but Schefter described them as encouraging.
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald went further with reporters, saying the team “got great news back” and that doctors do not believe Darnold fractured his hip.
A hip fracture would have been season-ending and potentially career-altering. Ruling that out is the single most important thing that happened to Seattle on Wednesday, including the win.
Darnold’s stat line was two attempts, one completion, 13 yards. That was the entire night.
Drew Lock came in and did something Seattle badly needed. He went 16-for-22 for 122 yards with a touchdown and zero interceptions, and the Seahawks beat New England 13-10. Not a spectacular performance, but a clean, mistake-free one against a team that was starting a quarterback who finished second in MVP voting last season.
Lock managed the game, the defense forced three fourth-quarter interceptions off Drake Maye, and Seattle walked out 1-0 without its starter.
The timing works in Seattle’s favor too. The Seahawks played on a Wednesday and do not play again until Sept. 20 against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. That is 11 days of rest before Week 2, which is a meaningful head start on any hip injury.
Whether it is enough is the open question. Hip injuries in quarterbacks are notoriously unpredictable, and “not fractured” still covers a wide range of outcomes from a deep bruise to significant soft tissue damage. Darnold could be back for Arizona or he could miss several weeks.
What Seattle knows for certain is that the catastrophic version is off the table.
That matters more than usual for this roster. Darnold is the center of the offense, and the departure of Kenneth Walker III in free agency this offseason removed the run-game safety net the Seahawks leaned on during their title run. Seattle also lost Jake Bobo to a torn ACL during the offseason. The margin for error was already thin before Wednesday.
The former No. 3 overall pick has built one of the more unlikely career arcs in recent NFL history, going from bust label with the Jets to two-time Pro Bowler to Super Bowl MVP. Losing him for the year would have ended Seattle’s repeat hopes on day one.
Instead the Seahawks are 1-0 with a functional backup and a quarterback who dodged the worst outcome.
Watch for a fuller diagnosis in the coming days. Until then, Seattle got the answer it needed most.
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.
