Sam Darnold avoided ghosts to become a Super Bowl-winning QB

Coming into Super Bowl LX, the New England Patriots seemingly faced a narrow path to a win over the Seattle Seahawks.

Every one of which started the same way.

Force the bad Sam Darnold game.

With Seattle’s defensive prowess, and New England’s struggles on offense during the postseason against other elite defenses, it looked as if the only way the Patriots were going to pull off the upset was through their defense. And that idea started with forcing mistakes from Darnold, likely through the use of pressure. As we noted ahead of Super Bowl LX, when pressured this season Darnold threw a league-leading eight interceptions, with six of those coming when he was blitzed.

Simply put, the team that forced Darnold to “see ghosts” years ago needed to do it again.

New England certainly tried to conjure the ghosts on Sunday night, using aggression both up front, and in the secondary. By my own charting the Patriots brought five or more pass rushers after Darnold on 22 of his 38 passing attempts, or on 58% of those snaps. ESPN had that number at “nearly 57%” following Super Bowl LX.

But behind that pass rush, New England’s defensive backs tried to jump every throw they could, aiming to force the critical interception out of Darnold’s hand.

But Seattle’s passer finished the game having completed 19-of-38 passes for 202 yards and a touchdown. It was not a flawless performance but more importantly, there were no interceptions and no turnovers.

And not a ghost to be found.

Darnold found moments throughout the night to avoid pressure, frustrate New England pass rushers, and avoid the big mistake. On some of those moments he picked up yardage with his legs, and on other moments Darnold found receivers downfield late in the down.

On this play from the first quarter, New England brings five after Darnold, but the pocket holds up, and the Seattle quarterback is content to check the ball down to tight end AJ Barner to move the sticks on third down:

Early in the third quarter, New England brought six after Darnold, with Seattle operating deep in their own territory. Seattle’s quarterback was more than willing to hang in the pocket in the face of the pressure, connecting with Rashid Shaheed to move the chains:

As noted above, Darnold even found ways to make plays with his legs, as he did on this play in the second half:

On that play New England generated pressure with just four — taking a page out of Seattle’s playbook — but Darnold turned what could have been the break the Patriots were looking for into another big play for the Seahawks offense.

When Seattle finally reached the end zone, it came with New England bringing pressure and Darnold handling it to perfection:

And even when he missed on throws in the face of pressure, drives ended in punts or field goals, rather than turnovers. Which, given how well Seattle’s defense was playing, was exactly what Mike Macdonald was hoping for. Take this example from early in the game, where it looked as if New England was going to force the first big mistake from Darnold:

Darnold manages to avoid what could have been a costly sack — or worse — and while he misses Jaxon Smith-Njigba downfield, punter Michael Dickson comes onto the field for the next snap, and not the New England offense.

Again, it was not a flawless performance from Darnold on Sunday night. The quarterback admitted it himself after he got the chance to hold the Lombardi Trophy aloft at Levi’s Stadium. “I didn’t have my best stuff today, but the team had my back,” Darnold said. “The defense and special teams had our back, and we just played the way we always play.”

New England had one pathway to pull off the upset in Super Bowl LX.

Sam Darnold did everything he needed to to block that path.