From 'flop' to Super Bowl favorite: Sam Darnold's second act

Three years after he was widely written off as yet another highly drafted NFL flop, Darnold enters this Sunday's Super Bowl as favorite to win the sport's biggest prize.

"You see examples... all around the league, in the past -- guys maybe not having as much success as they feel like they should have had, or maybe the media thinks that they should have had right out of college," Darnold told AFP on Wednesday.

"But I think that the biggest thing is to just believe in yourself.

"I think that's really what it comes down to -- I've always believed in myself, and I've always had confidence in myself to do my job. And I learned."

The imposing 6ft 3in tall quarterback from California was the third overall pick in a star-packed 2018 draft, chosen by the New York Jets ahead of Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, and just behind Baker Mayfield.

He is now the first of those household-name NFL quarterbacks to reach a Super Bowl, taking on the New England Patriots back in his home state this Sunday.

But the journey has been far from smooth. After struggling for three seasons in the harsh New York media spotlight, Darnold was traded to the Carolina Panthers for two more lackluster years.

His rebirth began with a season in San Francisco as backup to Brock Purdy, and accelerated with a 14-win campaign for the Minnesota Vikings in which he threw a career-high 35 touchdowns.

In a now-infamous decision, Minnesota decided to switch to their young QB prospect JJ McCarthy, and the Seattle Seahawks swooped in for Darnold last March.

"There's a lot of things that we saw in Sam that we loved, and he's lived up to those things -- and then some," Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald told AFP.

"There's gonna be times throughout the years that you fall short, you get back up and dust yourself off and keep plugging away -- Sam's been that steadying force," added Macdonald.

"He's a resilient dude and a competitor. A winner."

- 'Blackballed' -

The NFL has long been a brutal place for young quarterbacks, who can overnight go from the next big superstar to a busted flush.

"It's maybe one of those things that's very understated, how quickly the NFL can chew up and spit out a quarterback who doesn't perform up to the standards that people place on them early in their career," said Darnold's veteran teammate Cooper Kupp.

"You can just get basically blackballed into saying, 'Well, you're not a starting quarterback.'

"For Sam to be able to do what he did, go through the early trials that he did, and be able to come back from that... It's impressive. It's really impressive."

"There's not many people that have done it."

But it is a trait that Darnold has long exhibited, according to his high school coach Jaime Ortiz, who remembers his former student as a wildly gifted but quietly driven kid.

"Sam is his own harshest critic. He takes it on the chin," Ortiz told AFP.

Darnold, who appeared relaxed in front of reporters on Wednesday and insisted that his recent oblique injury "feels really great," agrees.

"I learned a ton from the mistakes that I made early on in my career," he said Wednesday.

"And I feel like that mindset has gotten me to this point."