Sam Darnold avoids hip fracture as MRI looms while Seahawks remain confident: 'We're gonna find a way to win'
The Seattle Seahawks are the defending Super Bowl champions, and they are not likely to simply bow out in the face of tough times this season.
We understand that because on Wednesday night, in the NFL's regular-season opener that was a Super Bowl LX rematch against the New England Patriots, things looked bleak for the Seahawks.
Often.
It began with starting quarterback Sam Darnold leaving the game after the fifth play of the game with a hip injury. Yes, terrible.
NFL'S WEEK 1 TRIBUTE TO 9/11 ON DISPLAY IN SEATTLE AND IT INCLUDED A WILD NATIONAL ANTHEM
But Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald reported after the game that doctors have ruled out a fracture. So the fears of Darnold going on injured reserve and missing at least four games and probably more are allayed for now.
"Let’s say it’s good news right now," Macdonald said. "At this point, we were able to rule out a fracture. There’s some more tests to be done. But that’s what I’m saying when it’s positive.
"But I know we’re still working through all that, but right now a fracture is out, which is great news."
Darnold will have an MRI and the timetable for his return will depend on what those scans show Thursday morning.
While Darnold was having his X-rays in the stadium, the Seahawks handed the quarterback duties to backup Drew Lock. And here's something you should know about that:
"He took basically took no reps with any of the guys that were out there all week," receiver Cooper Kupp said.
Lock threw only three passes last season to set a weak foundation for getting no repetitions in practice the past week. But thrust into an opening night nightmare scenario and then falling behind 10-0 by the third quarter, Lock rose up.
He rallied his team to a tie with a 45-yard touchdown pass to receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Later, he completed a couple of more passes (his completion percentage was 72.7 for the game) and scrambled for 14 yards to put his team in position for a field goal that gave the Seahawks a 13-10 lead.
THE CRAIG CARTON SHOW–UNFILTERED, UNAPOLOGETIC AND UNMISSABLE. DOWNLOAD HIS DAILY PODCAST NOW!
Lock ultimately outplayed Patriots quarterback Drake Maye.
The Seahawks backup was better than the New England starter.
"It was a blast," Lock said. "Such an awesome night."
Lock, by the way, said he gets ready for games by "literally drawing" the plays. He has a white board next to his bed and he draws the plays that he isn't necessarily practicing on the field onto that board at night and in the morning.
Cool story? Here's something more cool:
The Patriots digested all that Seattle comeback and refusal-to-quit stuff and still got in position to win the game. They marched to the Seattle 16-yard line with 26 seconds to play so a tie seemed like their worst-case scenario.
That's when Maye threw his third interception of the night against a secondary that was without both its starting safeties.
"We don't waiver," Smith-Njigba said. "We don't run from adversity. That's the guys we are. That's the team this is."
There is much talk around the NFL about the Los Angeles Rams being the best team, which obviously is an slight of the defending champion Seahawks because they play in the same NFC West division as the Rams.
So how do the Seahawks overcome that Rams super team narrative, the opening night injury of their quarterback, a 10-0 third-quarter deficit, and make the biggest play when it counts most?
"I think there's something to be said in the NFL about expectation that you have for yourself," Kupp said. "And I think you can get into games, through whatever your experience has been in football, and you get into that last four minutes, and you either have this expectation you're gonna find a way to win, or you have the expectation that something's gonna go wrong, and you're gonna find a way to lose.
"And we've got a lot of guys on this team, I would say just about everyone on this team, if not everyone, has the expectation that we're gonna find a way to win the game. And that goes a long way."